It’s a good thing veteran drag racer Terry McMillen wasn’t going to return to driving until later in the 2022 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series.
The Top Fuel driver broke his fibula last week when he slipped on ice in his driveway.
“First off, there’s nothing you can do about it,” McMillen told CompetitionPlus.com. “It happened. Two is, it’s now about having the surgery today and getting the recovery (started). I had a great doctor, he told me that hopefully within a couple of weeks, I’ll be able to start putting pressure on it.”
McMillen said they put a plate and seven screws, and a hinge bracket in there to make it all work, and to make it heal quicker, and support it better.
“So hopefully, within the next couple of weeks, we can start putting pressure on it, and hopefully by six weeks, it’d be about time to get ready to hit the race car anyway,” McMillen said.
McMillen, who sat out the entire 2021 NHRA season after losing sponsorship, is scheduled to run a limited Top Fuel schedule this year for team owner Dan Mercier.
“Man, I wish I had a better story,” said McMillen about how he broke his leg. “I just wished I had a better story. Walking down the driveway in all that snow, I was talking to Big Jim on the phone. I have my boots on, and my boots just don’t have great bite. Then a truck pulled in next to me and I looked over at him.
“But I swear to you, man, I got video and I was only taking a 12-size, shoe 12, step right in front of each other all the way down there. All of a sudden my left leg just said, ‘See you,’ and I had my arms out, man, instantly, but I came down on my right leg with my butt and just crunched my bone in two places and broke it.”
A silver lining for McMillen is his first race with Mercier is slated to be the Gatornationals, March 10-13, in Gainesville, Fla.
“I will venture to say that we’re (still) going to be at the Gators,” McMillen said “Yeah. I just wish I had a better story, man. Like a trampoline, or a trapeze, or something broke, you know? Yeah, or like that dude on The Wide World of Sports that wipes out in downhill skiing. It’s crazy. I feel good. I feel a lot better and then to get the surgery today made it feel a lot better. It’s just basically my leg, my knee was straight, and my foot was 20 to 30 degrees to the right.”
McMillen acknowledged the timing of his accident was far from ideal.
‘Well, it’s terrible because there’s so much going on right now,” he said. “We’re trying to… my goal has been to reach out to our marketing partners in the past, and start touching base with them, and see what we can put together for them, and all that stuff. Dan had his… the crew up here from Quebec. We had them up here all last week. Then they had to rush back home because Dan got his new car. So, he’s going to run that at the Baby Gators. We’re going to try to go down there and run Cameron’s car at the Baby Gators, his junior (Dragster). So, I got a lot to get done in a short period of time, but right now (there’s) my foot. I could kick a field goal, I’ll bet, a hundred yards with this foot.”
