He’s always wanted to drive a NHRA race-winning Top Fuel dragster, and now Clay Millican has.   There were no headlines, however, because he was making test laps in the Matco Tools car usually driven by Antron Brown.

Brown couldn’t stay for Monday’s test session last week in Commerce, Ga., so Millican did double duty driving his regular ride, the MPE Motorsports Hope4Sudan/Motorvation dragster. The team was searching for a combination that can put Millican in NHRA’s winner’s circle while preparing for the O’Reilly Midwest Nationals, Friday through Sunday, at Gateway International Raceway, near St. Louis.

“We want to make our car run more competitively off the starting line and Lance (Larsen, team crew chief) wanted to make that happen during testing,” explained Millican.  “Lance’s quarter-mile tune-ups always ran strong at the finish line.  The 1,000-foot distance has really hurt our car’s performance, but it definitely ran better during testing.  The new tune-up changed how the car reacts.  It’s like a baby wanting a pacifier and is happy when he finds the one he wants.

He’s always wanted to drive a NHRA race-winning Top Fuel dragster, and now Clay Millican has.   There were no headlines, however, because he was making test laps in the Matco Tools car usually driven by Antron Brown.

Brown couldn’t stay for Monday’s test session last week in Commerce, Ga., so Millican did double duty driving his regular ride, the MPE Motorsports Hope4Sudan/Motorvation dragster. The team was searching for a combination that can put Millican in NHRA’s winner’s circle while preparing for the O’Reilly Midwest Nationals, Friday through Sunday, at Gateway International Raceway, near St. Louis.

“We want to make our car run more competitively off the starting line and Lance (Larsen, team crew chief) wanted to make that happen during testing,” explained Millican.  “Lance’s quarter-mile tune-ups always ran strong at the finish line.  The 1,000-foot distance has really hurt our car’s performance, but it definitely ran better during testing.  The new tune-up changed how the car reacts.  It’s like a baby wanting a pacifier and is happy when he finds the one he wants.

“It was a blast driving Antron’s car.  I made seven laps in two different Top Fuel cars.  I’m honored they let me do it.  Lance is good friends with Antron’s crew chiefs, Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald.  It was different sitting in someone else’s office.  The cars are very different even though they were both built by Brad Hadman.”

Millican admits he hasn’t had much success at St. Louis.  “I don’t recall turning on many round-win lights there,” he said, “but maybe things will be different this weekend.  I guess we’ll find out if it was a worthwhile test.”

And he could soon add his dragster to the list of winning cars he’s driven.

Personable driver on the go off-track, too

Millican has had a busy week.  He helped MPE Motorsports owner Mark Pickens test his Pontiac GTO Top Sportsman car in Happy Springs, Miss., on Monday and completed building an engine for son Dalton’s ATV National Motocross race this weekend in Walnut, Ill.

“I was able to witness an amazing thing last weekend at Bruton Smith’s z-Max Dragway,” added Millican, the co-host of Pinks All-out, the popular Speed TV drag racing show.  “There were 30,000 people at the track near Charlotte (N.C.).  One of the real interesting things was that they ran four cars at a time on the dragway’s side-by-side tracks.  I’d never seen anything like that before.  It’s certainly a quick way to eliminate cars.  It was awesome.”

 

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