The 2023 NHRA season has been one of extremes for veteran Top Fuel driver Clay Millican.

He had either lost in the first round or won the race. The latter happened in memorable fashion at the last Mile-High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway on Sunday before a sellout crowd.

Millican clocked a 3.872-second elapsed time at 299.60 mph to defeat Doug Kalitta’s 4.454-second lap at 211.23 mph in Morrison, Colo., outside of Denver.

This was Millican’s fifth career Top Fuel Wally and his second of the season. He also won in Chicago on May 21.

“When you race Doug Kalitta, you can't leave anything on the table, and actually my semifinal opponent, Shawn Langdon, are as far as I'm concerned, they're two of the best out here,” Millican said. “I have no idea the numbers in the final. All I know was the blinking light was on my side. But I mean, shoot, you're racing Doug Kalitta and that whole Connie Kalitta team with AJ (Alan Johnson) over there. Here we are in the media center again. It's just incredible what this group of people, and I call them kids and they get on me all the time 'cause they're not kids. I'm 57 years old. If you're in your 20s, you're a kid. I’m just sorry about that. But they're amazing.”

Millican’s Parts Plus Rick Ware Racing dragster has had a somewhat strange season. He lost in the first round in eight of the nine races and won Chicago.

“Think about it: We have not won a single round until Chicago,” he said. “What do we do? We win the race. So, when we won first round, I'm like ‘We're winning the race.’ It is pretty amazing what Jim O (Oberhofer, his crew chief) has done. It's like when he gets it, whatever it is, he just does it over and over and over. I'm going to say now, run of the year so far was Q3 Saturday, 3.79 and the second-best car was Doug Kalitta at 3.88. When you could put nine hundredths on the second-best car, that's pretty strong. I think that 79 just set Jim O up for what was coming (Sunday). This was exactly like Chicago for me. The only way for me to lose this race was for me to do something wrong.

“I said it on the top end, I'm going to say it here. Thank the man upstairs that I didn't do anything wrong. I don't know that I left first or whatever. Doesn't matter. The win light came on. It's just incredible what happens when that first round win light comes on. You hold a Wally, it's awesome.”

Back on April 21, NHRA and the Bandimere family jointly announced the 2023 Dodge Power Brokers NHRA Mile-High Nationals on at Bandimere Speedway would be the last NHRA national event at the historic track. 

First opened in 1958, the Bandimere family has agreed to sell the current property and land, with the 2023 racing season marking the end of drag racing at the facility.

That wasn’t lost on Millican.

“To win here cannot be done again,” Millican said. “I lost the final round at the 50th in Gainesville(Fla.). That one hurt. I lost it on the hole shot byRichie Crampton. There's only one 50th, but that does not even compare to this because this will never ever happen again. We all got our fingers crossed that the Bandimere family builds another racetrack, but nothing will be like this racetrack. The way the mountain is set up, the way the grandstands are. So much so that I basically beat on my sisters until they said they're coming. That's been kind of cool because they were there for a pile of my IHRA stuff. But this is the first time they've been here for an NHRA win and that's pretty dang cool.”

 

 

On Sunday, Millican defeated Tony Schumacher, Mike Salinas, Langdon and then Kalitta. When Millican won over Kalitta he had plenty of emotion pour out.

“My family's pretty small, but they're certainly special,” Millican said. “It's been a running joke. Y'all know I'm a YouTube guy. I'm always YouTubesaying that I was surrounded by all the women who control me, so I had better not made a mistake at all this weekend because I'd never hear the end of it. The only way for this to work out where I don't get in trouble was to do what we did. Now that doesn’t mean I won't do something wrong at dinner tonight and get in trouble, but it was pretty cool. There's a lot of emotion with that. I kind of hold it back because, hey, it's at the surface with me. Y'all have seen it before. But it's really that win was really for them.”

Millican acknowledged his first national event win in his home state of Bristol, Tenn., in 2017, is No. 1 in his heart, but Sunday’s victory was almost as special.  

“As far as in here (his heart), nothing will ever top Bristol. I've said that over and over and over again,” Millican said. “But for my sisters and those kids that work on this car. and especially all the sponsors, which obviously Parts Plus I think this is my 12th or 13th year with those guys, some at Edelbrock, Denso, we have a new look coming for Sonoma that has not been put out there yet. That's going to be pretty cool with Denso and, whew, it's crazy. But the one family that I really, really got to thank that has kept us in the game and gave us the equipment to make this thing turn on win lights is obviously Rick and Lisa Ware.”

Ware bought Millican’s team late last August and brought much-needed financial stability to the team.

“This is a guy that races everything there is to race and yet this is his baby,” Millican said of Ware. “He's over there NASCAR racing, he's IndyCar racing, he's doing all these things. I have no idea how he keeps up with it. But every single run, the phone's ringing. He's watching on NHRA.TV and he's always cheering. Even when we mess up, he's cheering. Like, ‘I believe in you guys, you can do it,’ and that was even before we won Chicago. Never once did we ever hear anything about, ‘Man, do y'all realize how much money I've spent, all the equipment I've bought you?’ We were saying it. We were struggling. We had old wore out stuff that we were winning rounds with last year and we got all this new stuff and couldn't turn on a win light. So, it's been a little weird, but Rick and Lisa have been amazing.”

Millican confirmed part of the strength of his team came when it added legendary Australian Drag Racing tuner Bruce Read.

“It's really cool,” Millican said about adding Read. “For you folks that are watching this if you don't look at Australian drag racing. … He's tuned 24 (Top Fuel world championships) amongst his whole family. My way of explaining who Bruce Read is, his family is the (John) Force family of Australia. Jim O and Bruce might as well be brothers. Jim O goes to Australia and helps him on his car, and he's come up here and he's helping us. And again, Rick and, I didn't mention Robby, but Rick, Robby Benton is the president of Rick Wear Racing. We got together because Bruce came basically on a vacation, last year I guess it was. And the car was just clicking. 

 

 

“So, there's something like a yin and yang I guess it is with Jim O and Bruce. They're pretty dang magical together and it obviously showed up today. We may not let him (Read) miss Dallas, but he's got to. Their season starts and they got a heck of a team down there and he's a super good guy. He's fun to work with and he talks funny. Y’all think I talk funny, he really talks funny. He is from the South though. It's just a little further South than where I’m from.”

After claiming eight of his round wins this seasonat two races, Millican is hopeful his team will use the Denver victory as a springboard.

“I am always the optimist. Always. You pretty much can tell me whatever you're going to tell me, but I truly believe that we can win,” he said. “We've now obviously proven it a couple times, but it really has been weird. Many races it has been no round wins and two races with all wins. That's so bizarre to do that. The thing that I've really been paying attention to and I'm totally not answering your question is, we got to get in the top 10 (in the points standings). I don't know where we're at, but we got to be getting closer. That's hugely important for everybody. We want to run for the championship. I've gotten close once. I finished third one year (in 2018) and I want to do better.

“I've got some championships on the IHRA side(six), but I want to add one over here and I just absolutely cannot answer your question, why it's feast or famine as you say. But all I know is if we get some good runs in qualifying, I'll take Jim O because he's not going to go out there and try to hit a home run. He's going to make us go down the racetrack. But Chicago and here, he obviously made it go down the racetrack quicker than everybody else. So, my confidence in everybody on that Parts Plus team is very high. I'm always optimistic.”