Bill Miller was as mad as a man could get Friday afternoon. So mad was the veteran piston manufacturer whose Top Fuel dragster runs a limited schedule that he was rebooking his plane tickets to fly home early Saturday morning. He’d planned to spend a weekend testing his new Top Fuel dragster and working with new driver Troy Buff.

That was the plan that never came to fruition.

Instead Miller was notified by NHRA Director of Top Fuel & Funny Car racing Dan Olson that his chassis was illegal per the established S.F.I. specs mandated. The safety conscious Miller was taken aback by the ruling.

Miller was essentially eliminated because he said he took safety to the next level.

“Dan Olson said because the car did not have the joint that combines the driver’s compartment to the inch-and-a-half .095 tubing at the rear of the three verticals that come together, made the car illegal,” Miller said. “Basically I didn’t want a ‘break-me-here spot in the car’ and I did that because you can’t tell me how a car will crash every time.”

Bill Miller was as mad as a man could get Friday afternoon. So mad was the veteran piston manufacturer whose Top Fuel dragster runs a limited schedule that he was rebooking his plane tickets to fly home early Saturday morning. He’d planned to spend a weekend testing his new Top Fuel dragster and working with new driver Troy Buff.

That was the plan that never came to fruition.

Instead Miller was notified by NHRA Director of Top Fuel & Funny Car racing Dan Olson that his chassis was illegal per the established S.F.I. specs mandated. The safety conscious Miller was taken aback by the ruling.

Miller was essentially eliminated because he said he took safety to the next level.

“Dan Olson said because the car did not have the joint that combines the driver’s compartment to the inch-and-a-half .095 tubing at the rear of the three verticals that come together, made the car illegal,” Miller said. “Basically I didn’t want a ‘break-me-here spot in the car’ and I did that because you can’t tell me how a car will crash every time.”

Miller built his chassis in-house under the guidance of noted chassis expert Don Long. He pointed out that he used Dr. Rory Davis’s Finite Element Analysis to build what he said was a safer car than the spec.

“Listen to Don Long,” Miller said. “He says if you can’t describe the crash, you can’t describe the solution.”

Speculation throughout the Firebird Raceway pits and beyond today suggests this was in retaliation to Miller’s outspoken nature regarding the use of heat-treated versus normalized tubing in nitro chassis designs. Regardless of the basis for this ruling, Miller said the decision to not allow his car to run is a kick in the gut.

“It didn’t meet the S.F.I. spec,” Olson said in a telephone interview Friday evening.

Olson said Miller was given the copy of the spec.

“He already had the paper but for whatever reason, which is beyond me, he did it,” Olson said. “I have no idea why he did it that way. The spec is the spec and it is black and white. It’s easy to understand. The drawing shows exactly the way it should be done.

“All the other cars have it, the Hadman, McKinney and others are built to that spec.”

Olson has an opposing view regarding Miller’s claims the chassis is safer.

“It’s not even close to the spec,” Olson said.

Having NHRA officials in town for the weekend testing was somewhat of a different scenario than last weekend in Las Vegas. The NHRA was adamant it wouldn’t sanction nor support the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Test session. There are race officials present this weekend pre-inspecting vehicles for the upcoming NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, Ca. If a car does not have the certification sticker, regulations mandate it cannot legally make a pass down the drag strip without putting the track owner at liability.

The NHRA has legalized a new chassis specification for the Top Fuel division and labeled it as SFI Spec 2.3N and it will become effective as of April 21, 2008. The gives all teams the opportunity to have new cars or existing ones brought into spec by the NHRA Southern Nationals in Atlanta, Ga.

The new spec will be one-and-a-half inch .095 chromoly tubing on the top and bottom rail with sleeves in each bend. The bend at the rear firewall, at top and bottom will require a sleeve. The bend at the front of the motor that goes up to the hoop will also require a sleeve in it too.