Never underestimate Clay Millican.
At one time it seemed that the star IHRA driver would just be known as a hugely popular NHRA Top Fuel driver without a Wally to his name.
Those days are long gone – and Millican showed why again Sunday.
Millican captured his eighth Wally when he outlasted Tony Stewart in the finals of the Lucas Oil Winternationals in Pomona, California. Millican clocked a 4.273-second time at 189.71 mph to defeat the tire-smoking Stewart, who came across the finish line in 6.187 seconds.
Millican’s victory wasn’t without drama as his engine produced a fireball on his victorious lap in his Parts Plus/Rick Ware Racing dragster
“It is huge. This is definitely one of the majors,” Millican said about winning the Winternationals for the first time in his career. “Now, we have won Indy and we have won here, and that’s pretty dang cool. (Sunday) was a total team effort. I pulled us out once, which rarely ever happens, and the team just stuck together.
“Boy, that final round was forever. When you blowed up and you know you blowed up and you have a HANS (head and neck) device on and you’re stretching that HANS device to the limit trying to look over and see if he’s coming or not. That finish line couldn’t get there quick enough, I promise. I never let off the throttle even though it wasn’t running no more. I had that thing buried. I was stepping on the loud pedal harder than normal. What a day.”
This was Millican’s first national-event win since he took home the crown at the prestigious U.S. Nationals last September in Indianapolis. Millican has claimed five of his eight career Top Fuel Wallys since the beginning of the 2023 season.
“I was putting my firesuit on, and Jim O is facing away from me every time I put my firesuit on, but he will do a chair spin around me when he has something to say,” Millican said about what his crew chief Jim Oberhofer told him before the final round. “He did a chair spin around me, and he said, ‘Here’s what is going to happen: It is either going to run low ET, it is going to blow up and if it does not smoke the tires, we will not be a trivia question as who let Tony Stewart win his first (Top Fuel) NHRA national event. You know he is going to win one. He’s won in everything he has ever driven, and that was a crazy final round. I don’t know what happened to him. All I know is our win light was blinking, and I was ready to pull over because the Mighty Fire Breaker was on fire.”
On Sunday, Millican defeated Shawn Reed, Jasmie Salinas, and No. 1 qualifier Brittany Force before dispatching Stewart.
“I gave her a quick little pedal because it was shaking a little bit,” Millican said about his first-round victory. “Jim O was bragging on me, and I told him I have lost plenty for us. This just happened to be a good day for me. We truly, and it is so cliché I even hate to say it, when I screw up, nobody is mad at me. And when they screw up, I’m not mad at them because anyone can mess this thing up. All it takes is one person to mess this thing up.
“When I do it, or Jim O or (tuner) Nicky (Bonifante) does it, it is evident to the world. But there are other times when you lose races, you could point a finger at someone else on the team, but we just don’t do it. Our team policy is if you screw up, admit it because it makes it so much easier.”
Millican cited an example of the team policy in action Sunday.
“One of our brand-new team members went straight in the lounge and told Jim O that one tire is one inch bigger than the other,” Millican said. “The team member’s name is Logan. He is brand-new to drag racing, fresh out of school. I’m so proud of him because he easily could have told Jim O all the tires are good, but he didn’t. I don’t even want to say he made a mistake, but he told Jim O those tires aren’t right. (Clay’s wife) Donna, who is down there filming for the YouTube Channel, said, ‘You might better get in the car because we were making a NASCAR pitstop to get a set of tires on the thing closer to the same diameter.’ We are not driving sprint cars out here although my runs (Sunday) looked like I should be in one.
“It is such a cool deal when as a group you come together and get a Wally.”
Millican, who was appearing in his 18th NHRA final round, lost seven final rounds in a 13-year stretch before he finally won a coveted Wally in Bristol, Tenn., in 2017 when beat Leah Pruett in the finals.
Millican digressed in his postrace press conference to talk about his victory at the Winternationals, mentioning his late son Dalton, whose motocross racing number was 25. The storied race has been won by the likes of Don Garlits, Tony Schumacher, and Joe Amato.
“I always go down this path because it means so much to me, Donna, the family. Before I put my helmet on, I look at my phone and I have 25 text messages. Those of you all who know that was Dalton (Millican’s number) and it means a lot to us. I screenshotted that because I bet I have over 100 now. I said, ‘OK, buddy, let’s do this.’ I’m playing catch up. Nineteen years and I believe 254 races before I won Bristol. Nineteen years. The longest streak of a driver going that many races without winning.
“Everybody always talks about John Force and all his runners-up, and I have had 11 or 12 of them, but I’m going to blame Dalton. I wasn’t supposed to win until Father’s Day (in Bristol). Now we are playing catch up. It is pretty cool. Who knows how long I will drive these things, but there are more (wins) coming. This team is a winner. I don’t want y’all to think I’m fixing to retire because I’m not. If you know anything about drag racing, there ain’t no 401(k) and there ain’t no retirement.”
Dalton Millican passed away in a motorcycle wreck on Aug. 13, 2015. He was 22.
Speaking of Schumacher, it was announced earlier this year that he would be joining Millican as a teammate later this season.
“I can’t wait,” Millican said. “I’ve technically never had a teammate, so I don’t know the advantages and I don’t know the disadvantages. It is going to be fun. I have to be totally honest, Tony and I have never spent a ton of time together. I have always been an outsider. I’m not part of the clique. I have always been in Tennessee, not in Brownsburg, Indiana. This is how I have always done it in 20-plus years, but I’m truly looking forward to it.
“I have spent more time in the past three or four months talking to Tony before the deal was even close to getting done, and we have just continued to talk. It is interesting how much we do the same and how much we do different – just little things. It is going to be fantastic. Everybody talks about the data, but it is more than that. It is not just what you see on the racetrack, but what each car can do for each other. I’m looking forward to it. Tony is a legend out here and to have him as a teammate is going to be pretty cool.
“I do know when Rick Ware goes to a board room, he can say he has the all-time winningest (driver in NHRA in Schumacher) and all-time winningest (in Millican in IHRA). Nobody else can say that.”
Millican also gave an update on the timeline to get Schumacher behind the wheel.
“I’m being completely honest, we have a chassis and there are negotiations going on right now for two trucks and trailers. The hard part is the people. It is all going through Jim O,” he said. “The important thing is gathering up parts and pieces, but people are way more important. Without people, none of this happens. We are already getting a lot of resumes and there is no dead-set timeline. We are not going to come out here and put Tony in a car that is not equivalent to what my car is right now. It is very important that those cars are identical. He will be in a canopy car, and I will not, those will be the only two differences. Every other part on those race cars will be identical.”
