Suburban Newspaper Article

Woodbury, a four-time Indy 500 entrant, died in 1984, but his racing legacy lives on through the newly restored vehicle and the memories of his daughter, Jean Culligan, an Indian Head resident. It was to her home that owner Rob Dyson brought the car for a one-day visit on July 11.

Dyson, owner of Dyson Racing sports car team, purchased the car for $770,000 at an auction in Amelia Island, Florida, in April, where the antique Indy car attracted his interest.

“I was drawn by the history of the car and the mystique of the Miller brand,”Dyson said. I went down and I saw it, and said,” if I can reach and get this car, I’ll do it.”

“We had to spiff the car up in some areas,” Dyson said. It was nicely maintained, but we wanted to take it to another level and get the engine working a bit better.”

The high speeds at which these cars traveled, with no enclosure and little safety precautions or modern basics like shock absorbers, made driving to reach the Indy 500 all the more remarkable.

Today’s IndyCars typically have a six-speed gearbox and reach 230 mph and have turbocharged, 2.2-liter V-6 engines.

By today’s standards, the Miller model — featuring a 1.5-liter, straight-eight dual-overhead cam engine and three-speed gear box — is a simple machine. It operates with a hand-crank start and has a top-end speed of about 100 mph.

Woodbury raced the No. 15 car in 1927, finishing 19th at Indy. The year before, he came in third, his best finish in four starts at the Brickyard.

A passionate racer and dedicated craftsman, Woodbury opened an auto repair shop in Chicago at the end of a career that spanned hundreds of races on surfaces that included brick, dirt and pine boards. It was a crash on the Altoona Speedway’s wood track in 1929 that made him decide to end his racing career.

Although he had only a fourth-grade education, Woodbury was an apt businessman who was well received by his customers and his peers in the racing community, his family said.
“He was a very quiet man, and an avid reader,” Jean Culligan said. “He was a peoples’ person in a lot of ways, and he had a good time with them.”

Woodbury’s racing career took off under partner Mike Boyle, head of a Chicago electrical union, who helped build and modify the car Woodbury raced and several others like it.

“I started researching (auto racing) to send Jean little clips about Cliff,” Barbara Culligan said. “I became fascinated by it. Here’s this guy with a fourth-grade education, who essentially built all of the cars that he raced in, and he won.”

After paying $50 for a driving lesson, Woodbury first earned a living as a chauffeur in downtown Chicago, which turned into a $300 award after he won the first race he entered in a 1916 Buick.
“It’s like a rags-to-riches story,” Barbara Culligan said. “He was not only driving the cars, but he was building and rebuilding the cars himself.”