When Clay Millican rolls through the gates at Maryland International Raceway this weekend, he won’t be walking into unfamiliar territory.
Before NHRA brought Top Fuel back to Budds Creek, Millican already had the place figured out. During IHRA’s Top Fuel years at the Maryland facility, the Tennessee driver reached five final rounds in six appearances and won four of them.
That kind of success tends to leave marks behind.
For years, nitro cars were mostly absent from the facility outside Washington, D.C. The place built its reputation on doorslammers, alcohol Funny Cars and packed sportsman programs while Top Fuel remained on the outside looking in because of shutdown-area concerns.
That finally changed after track owner Royce Miller expanded and modernized the facility enough to handle nitro racing. In 2002, IHRA brought Top Fuel back to Budds Creek for the first time in the modern era.
Millican understood why the class stayed away for so long.
“Well, it didn’t bother me [that we didn’t get to race there back then], because at the time, all we kept hearing was there was not enough shutdown area,” Millican said. “Royce extended the shutdown as far as he could, and once we got there, the place became one of my favorite tracks to race.”
The first IHRA Top Fuel final in the modern era came in 2002 when Jack Ostrander defeated Paul Romine. Millican didn’t reach that final round, but once Top Fuel reestablished itself at Budds Creek, his name started showing up deep into eliminations almost every year.
The Maryland race sat between Epping and Rockingham on the IHRA schedule for years. Before the upgrades, it was the stop where the dragsters stayed home.
Once the long cars arrived, Millican turned the place into one of his better tracks.
From 2003 through 2007, Millican won four times there. Doug Foley handed him his only final-round loss at the facility during that stretch in 2004.
Millican beat Bruce Litton in 2003, Bobby Lagana Jr. in 2005 and T.J. Zizzo in 2007. The final win also closed the books on his IHRA driving career.
“That was a special place for me,” Millican said. “Every time we rolled in there, it just felt comfortable. We had a lot of success, we had a lot of friends there, and the fans treated us unbelievably well.”
By the end of his IHRA run, Millican had 51 victories in the series and multiple championships. Budds Creek became one of the tracks most connected to that stretch of dominance.
The record book still backs it up.
Millican continues to hold both ends of the quarter-mile track record at Budds Creek with a 4.568 elapsed time and a 328.14-mph pass. At the time, those numbers looked enormous for that facility.
“And I set the IHRA speed record that weekend,” Millican said. “At that time, running those kinds of numbers there was a huge deal because people never expected Top Fuel cars to run that hard at Budds Creek.”
IHRA later moved away from quarter-mile nitro racing, leaving Millican’s numbers untouched.
Those records may eventually disappear now that NHRA has returned to the facility, but Millican said the place itself still feels familiar.
This weekend’s event will run on the modern thousand-foot format instead of the quarter-mile course Millican raced during his IHRA years. The surroundings, however, remain mostly the same.
“Oh, absolutely,” Millican said when asked if the return rekindles old memories. “But the place is fun to go to. It’s a throwback kind of thing for me.”
“Going to Budds Creek and seeing Royce Miller again is going to be a lot of fun,” Millican continued. “That track is just so family-oriented. The Miller family always ran it that way, and racers appreciated it.”
Millican believes fans in the region have waited a long time to see Top Fuel return on a national-event level. He expects the crowd to reflect that.
“And that part of the world in our country really is going to be something new for them,” Millican said. “Getting a ticket is going to be something special because this race is going to be a sellout.”
