To say Clay Millican was a bundle of nerves waiting out a four hour weeper delay at Maple Grove Raceway Friday afternoon wouldn't tell the entire story.  

Millican wasn't on edge. He was more anxious to get the first run under his belt than he was concerned the team might embarrass themselves after being out of competition for nearly a year.

“I don't honestly know how long it's been,” Millican admitted when asked just when the last time he raced a top fuel dragster. “But, I know one thing – we're here, we're prepared – we're ready. I've got my same old boys back. Everybody here has been there, done that. We've got a couple of young guys who hopefully are going to show the world what they can do. This will be their first go at tuning a top fuel car.

“Justin Crosslin who has worked with me for nine years, through all my championships, is co-tuning the car. Also, new to our team is Mike Domagala, he's a veteran of the sport. I call him a young guy. He is a young guy, He's worked with such greats as Tim Richards, Brian Corradi, and Mark Oswald. He's been there and done that. He is new to our team. He is the one guy we brought in to help us out. I am really looking forward to what these young guys can do.”

 

To say Clay Millican was a bundle of nerves waiting out a four hour weeper delay at Maple Grove Raceway Friday afternoon wouldn't tell the entire story.  

Millican wasn't on edge. He was more anxious to get the first run his belt than he was concerned the team might embarrass themselves after being out of competition for nearly a year.

“I don't honestly know how long it's been,” Millican admitted when asked just when the last time he raced a top fuel dragster. “But, I know one thing – we're here, we're prepared – we're ready. I've got my same old boys back. Everybody here has been there, done that. We've got a couple of young guys who hopefully are going to show the world what they can do. This will be their first go at tuning a top fuel car.

“Justin Crosslin who has worked with me for nine years, through all my championships, is co-tuning the car. Also, new to our team is Mike Domagala, he's a veteran of the sport. I call him a young guy. He is a young guy, He's worked with such greats as Tim Richards, Brian Corradi, and Mark Oswald. He's been there and done that. He is new to our team. He is the one guy we brought in to help us out. I am really looking forward to what these young guys can do.”

After being out for a year, and suffering near catastrophic damage to his business in Memphis, one would think the team went out to a local track and made some practice runs, just to knock off the rust and get re-aquainted with each other. This team didn't have the luxury of such a test.

“None. None,” Millican said twice to drive home the point this race would also be the first test session for the operation since they shut down after Memphis in 2009, “This is the first time. The only time I have even sat in the car is one week ago. We started it up on the jack stands and that is about the most exciting jack stand run I have ever been a part of. It was awesome just to hear the thing run again. I can't wait to get the first run out of the way.”

Prior to making the first round qualifying run, Millican admitted to having a few butterflies; not many but a few.

“Absolutely,” said Millican when asked if he was at all nervous. “To quote Brett Farve, 'if it don't scare the (crap) out of you, it's not worth doing.' But, that's the truth. Anybody that doesn't have a little fear for these things has probably run too long.”

Once the pass was done, Millican was all smiles and ready for more.

“It was absolutely awesome,” said Millican, a huge smile on his face. “The guys did a great job. If this was a Cinderella story it would have run low et of the world but, you know what, the car was perfect, nothing fell off, it was a good safe run first time out with Justin and Mike D tuning.

I think we ended up ninth and I call that success.”

Millican improved with his second round run however he slipped from 9th to 12th in the order.

While Millican was more than happy to be at the track driving his top fuel dragster, he hasn't been sitting on the sidelines for the past year doing nothing. In the days prior to Reading Millican flew from Bristol to Memphis to Phoenix and then into Reading.

“I do Pinks All Out and I have a brand new show which just started filming,” started Millican. “Let me back up and go over my last week schedule. Saturday I was in Bristol filming Pinks All Out. I left Bristol Sunday – flew home and got there about eight that night. Monday morning I flew out to Phoenix to film my new show which I can't tell you about. It will be huge. It is huge, huge news for drag racing. I was there until Wednesday, flew straight to (Reading) and got in about 10 pm Wednesday night.”

 

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