tylor miller |
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PHOTOS: MILLER FAMILY ARCHIVES |
“ I’ m okay with fourth; it’ s a lot better than fifth or sixth,” Miller insists.“ Obviously we want to be number one, just like anybody else, but we’ re happy just to be out there racing. It can be disappointing sometimes, but I always try to look at the upside of everything.”
There’ s a lot of upside for Miller these days. His father, Russell, put together a top-notch team that includes chassis builder and tuner Andy McCoy, as well as fuel pump guru and crew chief Mike Kopchick of Rage Fuel Systems, which supplies most of the NHRA’ s top nitro teams.
“ I can’ t say enough about Mike,” McCoy stresses.“ He builds the engines, builds the fuel pumps, runs the dyno, just gives us the best power. And his son, Tommy, he’ s on the team and he’ s really coming along, too. It’ s just really neat to see the father-and-son duo at work together there, as well as the father-and-son duo of Russell and Tylor. It’ s just neat for me to be a part of it all.”
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Miller grew up drag racing. At just nine years old he hit the track, but unlike so many others his first racing ride was a far cry from a Jr. Dragster. Instead, Miller attacked the eighth mile in an early-‘ 80s, Fox-body Mustang outfitted with a 355 Chevy motor.“ We basically built it out of spare parts that Daddy had laying around from racing over the years,” he says.
With his father as crew chief, Miller began his career in the footbrake class at 710 Dragway, near Rowland, North Carolina, just across the state line from their Denton, South Carolina, home.“ It’ s not like this now, but back in 1999 it was basically a run-what-you-brung, outlaw kind of place, which is how I got to race so young there,” Miller explains.“ That’ s where I picked up my nickname, too, because there were a lot of Indian guys that used to race there and that’ s what they got to calling me,‘ Youngblood.’”
Miller raced the Mustang for about three years,
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then stepped up to a’ 92 Camaro with a 427 small block on nitrous. His dad swapped in a two-barrel carburetor to slow it down a little, since the first pass Miller made with the Camaro he went from 7.70s in the Mustang to a 6.20— with no nitrous.“ I remember Daddy saying,‘ Are you okay?’ and I was like,‘ Yeah, I’ m fine, let’ s do it again, but let’ s shoot the nitrous this time!’”
In 2005, an already experienced 15-year-old Miller entered the Camaro in an ORSCA event at Jackson, South Carolina, competing in Limited Street with a nitrous-boosted 632 Fulton engine up front and no wheelie bars out back.
“ I was still underage so I was running under someone else’ s license and I think I ended up qualifying eighth in a 16-car field for a substantial amount of money, especially for us low-budget racers,” Miller recalls.“ So anyway, for first round my dad told me,‘ I’ m gonna’ wick it up on the starting line, so be ready for anything,’ and I went up there OUTLAW ROOTS and it did a major
Rather than begin his wheelie to where it driving career in Jr. hit the back bumper Dragsters, Tylor Miller got a little and spun the his feet wet in a Fox-body tires. When it spun
Mustang before stepping up to a nitrous-assisted‘ 92 it slammed the front Camaro in his early teens. end back down and Even though he frequently just to be safe I did raced at outlaw tracks, what anybody who Miller’ s youth wasn’ t always knows how to drive welcomed by promoters and fellow racers. race cars would do; I pulled off to the side and shut the car off so I didn’ t oil down the whole track. So then a guy comes up to see if I’ m okay and when he saw how young I was he just told me to stay in the car while they got me off the track, because even though I was 15 I was pretty small and probably looked like I was 10 or 11. Anyway, when we got back to the trailer the car was fine and it fired right up, but then a lady came over and said to my dad,‘ I’ m not telling you your son can’ t race; I’ m just telling you he can’ t do it here,’ and that was the end of my ORSCA experience.”
Miller raced on 10.5-inch tires almost exclusively before getting his first chance in a Pro Mod-style ride in 2007, shortly after turning 17. He describes the car as a single-framerail’ 97 Camaro with a cast-aluminum, 540 Chevy block, topped with a Littlefield supercharger.“ We went to Dunn-Benson, long before it looks like it does now as GALOT, and the track record at the time was about a 4.27, I think. It wasn’ t a race, we just went there to test, so it was my first blower car ever and it was a lot louder than my nitrous car and I was kind of freaking out, to be honest,” Miller says.
“ I was on the phone with my mom and told her about how loud and obnoxious the blower car was and how I had butterflies in my stomach and how my dad just wanted me to go to 60 feet and turn it off. But I told her I wanted to run the full eighth mile and just get it over with. So she said to go ahead and tell Dad what I wanted
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May 2017 |
DragIllustrated. com | Drag Illustrated | 85 |