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[h=2]One step back leads to two steps forward for IHRA Pro Mod champ Miller[/h] Friday, 28 April 2017

Taylor Miller has nearly two decades of going full speed ahead. But, it was the South Carolina Pro Mod driver's willingness to take a step back and slow down that helped him become a champion.




Miller first drove when he was eight years old, and now, at age 27, he's approaching 19 years behind the wheel. All that experience led to last year's Carolina Extreme Pro Mod championship. The Hartsville, S.C. driver tops the Carolina Pro Extreme lists for wins, No. 1 qualifiers and final rounds. He raced in seven of the nine events in 2016, winning two races in four final rounds and posting six No. 1 qualifiers on his way to the title.
"It was awesome – it was a good group," Miller said at a recent International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) Summit Sportsman National Championship race. "There were some good competitors – there really aren't any 'gimmies'. In drag racing, you don't ever know. The best guy could break in the burnout; this sport is unpredictable. The best thing you can do is stay on top to the best of your ability and hope you make the next round. If you hit the button, and she starts moving, you can start grinnin'!"


Ironically, Miller and team kind of won the Carolina Extreme title by accident. The team was racing in PDRA (Professional Drag Racers Association) with little success so they took a step back and wound up taking two forward.
"We needed to run something else where we could keep up and get our stuff together," Miller said. "We just started learning – not trying to run as fast as we could but trying to learn something we didn't know on every pass. We needed to learn what to do on a cold track, a hot track, in good air or bad air, gear ratios, blowers, motors, rear ends – all the stuff. We finally started getting a combination together and ran some really good numbers. Then we started progressing and using what we learned in Carolina Extreme and showed it off a little bit. I think we had three runner-ups in PDRA and five runner-ups and two wins in Carolina Extreme. I think I set a record every time I went No. 1 qualifier."


Pushing the envelope is nothing new for Miller, whose father Russell owns the IHRA-sanctioned Darlington Dragway in South Carolina. Tylor's first driving experience came at age eight in a pickup truck at 710 Dragway in Rowland, N.C. near Pembroke. When the truck didn't go as fast as Tylor hoped, his Dad put a shot of nitrous on it, and it was better. From there, it was the younger Miller's first Pro Mod car with a blower.


"That was probably the most nervous I've ever been because I'd never been a blower car – I always ran nitrous," Tylor Miller said. "My legs were jumping at the starting line, my adrenaline was pumping, and I thought my head was gonna explode. As soon as I put the pedal to the floor, it was like all happiness; I made a full pull even though Daddy told me to only go to 300 feet."
And then there was the time seven years later when the 15-year-old driver posed as an adult and almost got away with it.


"We knew a guy that was really short and had a license to race, and obviously I didn't have one," the younger Miller said. "As soon as he got back from tech I suited up, got in it and started practicing and qualifying. We were qualified eighth and went for the third qualifier, and we tried to put a little more steam in it. It snatched the front tires in the air, then went into smoke and slammed the front end. I didn't know if I was leaking oil so I pulled off to the side, and everybody came to check on me.


"I didn't want to open the doors and let them see how young I was. I was 15, but I looked like a 10-year-old. I thought the guy was gonna break the door so I just unlocked it. He told me to stay in the car. They pulled me around, and the lady told my Dad, 'Russell, I'm not saying your son can't drive. I'm just saying he can't drive here.' We got knocked out, but we were happy – it was fun."


Like many young racers, Tylor Miller has professional aspirations. He dreams of the day a sponsor will believe in him and invest in his future which would alleviate the annual investment Russell Miller is now making in Pee Dee Fleet Motorsports, the team his son mostly manages and for which his younger sister, Brooke, also drives.
Brooke is currently second in the Darlington Dragway IHRA Summit Super Series Junior Dragster point standings where she's recorded a win and a runner-up; she is also fifth in the PDRA Top Junior class. In addition to running Darlington Dragway, the elder Miller owns the Pee Dee Fleet Truck and Trailer Center, a truck and trailer parts and service center in Hartsville, S.C.


It is clear both father and son are committed to drag racing – the elder running a state-of-the-art race track and funding the team with the younger chasing his dreams – but the dreamer appears to have it all in perspective.
"You gotta love work to race this sport at this level," Tylor Miller said. "The hobby in it starts to fade a little bit, and it becomes more of a job. You really have to have a passion for it because if you don't, you won't last."