BILL MILLER & TROY BUFF
ing. Where does it say that?’ and then she showed
me. ‘Race car driver’ is what it said. That’s pretty
cool. At first I thought she was joking when she
asked me when I was born. I was like, ‘Why?’”
She told him she put a lot of stock in the
Chinese zodiac, and she said, “We had another
Tiger, but he and Bill butted heads. That was
David Grubnic.”
Even Bill Miller alerted Buff.
“Bill said to me, ‘I am the Monkey. You’re the
Tiger. I am going to antagonize you and antagonize you and I’m going
to pick on you. And one
day you are going to want
to eat the Monkey. I just
said, ‘OK. Whatever.’ He
said, ‘That’s just what’s
going to happen. It’s
going to get to one day
where you’re just going
to lose it and blow up and
want to, basically, kill
me.’ Well, that day hasn’t
come yet, thank God.
“I absolutely love
Bill and Virgie. They
are not just the owners
who let me drive their
car. They’ve become like
family now. I truly love
them,” Buff said. “They
are like my parents when
I am away from home.
This is my 10th year
with Bill. Can you believe
that? Bill shook my hand
and said, ‘Congratulations. I’ve never had a
driver as long as you.’”
Buff said he’s pretty
certain he knows why
he has stayed longer
than any of Miller’s previous hires.
“Our relationship is
like this: he tells me what
to do, and I say, ‘Yes sir,’”
Buff said. “I have had
previous drivers tell me I
need to stand up to him.
I say, ‘No. I’m here and you’re not.”
Whatever the chemistry or astrological alignment, Miller and Buff have clicked famously, no
more so than last Sunday at Las Vegas. In Renobased Miller’s home state, Buff took the BME
Dragster to the final round of Top Fuel eliminations at the Denso Spark Plugs Nationals at The
Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Buff overcame a debilitating accident years ago
under the direction of his self-appointed physical
therapist father, NHRA Division 4 Hall of Famer
Willard Buf f. So he knows all about hard work.
But he also had a hunch last weekend.
“We’re convinced we’re going to win a race –
not just run 3.70s. We’re going to win. It’s going
to happen this year, I’m telling you. I think so. I
do believe that. I know it sounds crazy,” he said.
He knew that’s not the normal declaration from
a racer who by his 80th career event had won
only 15 times in 94 elimination rounds. Maybe
some of Virgie Miller’s powers of prophecy have
rubbed off on him.
Maybe it’s because he had the luxury in early
February not only of having a brand-new dragster
(known in the shop as BME-2) but experiencing the luxury of testing it – at Wild Horse Pass
Motorsports Park – near Phoenix.
“We haven’t tested in maybe five or six years,”
Buff said. “We were mainly testing because we had
a new car. It was a luxury for me to get comfortable in the new car. That last car was built for me
also. It was just different.
“This car really handles well. It’s just the way
the chassis was constructed. The old car was a
slip-joint car and this one is, too, but Bill made
some changes,” he said. “He made additions to the
car with the intent of making it more forgiving.
If I have to correct, it doesn’t move around like
the old car used to. It would get scary sometimes.
“The car drives really well. I love the car. Now,
it doesn’t like the tune-up from the old car, so
we are trying to figure out what this car likes,”
he said. “It has run 3.80s, which is the quickest
for this car and the other, too. It shows a lot of
improvement, and I’m hoping it’s going to run
3.70.This car was brand-new at the test session
[in February at Phoenix]. We shook it in at the
test session. That’s where we found it doesn’t like
the clutch combination that Bill had in old car,” he
said. “I know it’s going to run ‘70s. I keep saying
that. I hope it doesn’t make me a liar.
“I was proud because first round at Pomona,
we were back to Square One. We were right back
where we were when we left Pomona at the end
of the year [2015]. We
ran 81, and we came out
this season and ran an
80-flat. We figured, ‘OK.
We got it. Now let’s go
run a .79. It hasn’t come
yet – but it will. I know
it will,” Buff said.
So far the car isn’t producing 3.70s – but what
it’s producing has been
enough to get him to a
final round in a young
season that also has
seen fellow underdog
Terry McMillen make
the showdown for the
first time.
Elated with the Las
Vegas results, the BME
team is that much
more motivated to see
if they can repeat their
achievement.
The Chinese zodiac
chart that tells whether
Tigers will be lucky in
2016 shows a spike in
success for the period
March 9 to April 6. It
predicts an even bigger
summit for the June
5-July 3 stretch. During
that time frame are races
at Epping, New Hampshire; Englishtown, New
Jersey; Bristol, Tennessee; and Norwalk, Ohio.
The back of the BME
Dragster’s rear wing is
an op-ed space for the
opinionated Miller, and he has for a long time
declared there, “You can never have too much
horsepower or ammunition.” But hanging in the
team hauler is a plaque with inspiration from
President Calvin Coolidge: “Nothing can take the
place of persistence. Talent will not – nothing is
more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not – unrewarded genius is almost a
proverb. Education will not – the world is full of
educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has
solved and always will solve the problems of the
human race.”
That just might be true, too, of Tigers and
DI DI DI
Monkeys.
DI DI DI DI
28 | D r a g
I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
DI DI DI
Issue 109
PHOTOS: NHRA / NATIONAL DRAGSTER, RON LEWIS
Dirt