​Fifteen years later, Clay Millican still might be overshadowed by Dougzilla.

But he doesn’t seem to mind.

In fact, he’s rather amused by the 2002 incident here at Maple Grove Raceway that transformed happy-go-lucky Doug Herbert into an angry hulk. Following a stubborn staging duel, Herbert stepped from his car and ended a heated discussion with Peter Lehman, Millican’s car owner at the time, by shoving Lehman. It all played out before a TV audience and a houseful of fans who are hopeless suckers for such kind of scrums.    

“He became Dougzilla after that weekend,” Millican said.

Actually, Millican and Herbert since have become close friends, particularly with Millican’s involvement in Herbert’s B.R.A.K.E.S. (Be Responsible And Keep Everybody Safe) program. It’s a powerfully effective teen-driving initiative.

But that’s one inescapable memory of Reading for Millican.

“I can’t ever think about Reading without thinking about Doug Herbert. It’s part of drag-racing history,” he said. “It’s something I always think about when I go there. Fans still talk about it.”

Of course, Millican made another Maple Grove Raceway memory Friday night, taking the provisional No. 1 qualifying position with a 3.699-second elapsed time that edged Doug Kalitta’s 3.704. It raised eyebrows because it came on a hot track that defied that other Reading lore – that the track tucked away in the Eastern Pennsylvania hills produces stellar performance numbers because it’s always starkly cold and overcast. However, as Funny Car record-setter Robert Hight and his crew chief, Jimmy Prock, noticed, perhaps the big numbers come more so from the naturally quick concrete track that’s groomed well, the abundance of oxygen-rich trees that frame the facility, and even the latitude of Reading itself.

Even so, Millican’s 3.699 – an effort that Parts Plus/Great Clips Dragster crew chief sniffed at because it missed his 3.67 goal – wasn’t a track record. That still belonged after Friday qualifying to Antron Brown, with his year-old 3.688-second E.T.

But Millican had called it, and that, too, surprised people. The weather conditions led most folks to expect a parade of incomplete passes and more tire-smoking than record-setting. But drivers such as Millican and early Funny Car leader Hight knew better.

“I always look forward to going to Reading, because it is typically super-fast there. I really have confidence in our car. We can go there and possibly set the national record,” Millican said before the event opened. “This car is running so good whether it’s hot or cold. And a lot of times, conditions do present themselves at Maple Grove and everybody will be going for it. I feel like we have the opportunity to go there and set a new record. I really do.”

He wasn’t far off in his predictions, although Hight turned out to be the only one Friday who rewrote any records.

But speaking of Brown, Millican counted his second-round victory against Brown at Charlotte as almost a victory in itself and a harbinger of a happy Countdown for his Stringer Performance team.

“We’ve had a lot of issues racing Antron. He’s had my number. But I knew when I hit the throttle [last Sunday in the quarterfinals], we were off and running. We beat Antron by point zero, zero, five and turned the win light on. A great drag race for the fans to watch and a great win light for this team,” the No. 6-ranked racer said.  “Now what’s happened in the points is the top three drivers went out early and the bottom of the class moved up. This is going to be an exciting Countdown.”