Call it "A Tale of Two Terrys." Ironically, Terry McMillen's Countdown destiny ended up (and ended) in the hands -- literally -- of fellow lower-budget racer Terry Haddock during the first round of the Aug. 15 eliminations at Brainerd. A Haddock victory over Dave Grubnic would have helped McMillen toward his goal of making the 10-driver playoff field. But Haddock lost to Grubnic and McMillen fell in the next pairing to Tony Schumacher.
Haddock said he had wanted to beat Grubnic "to help Terry, because the little guys need more support for each other out here. But I made a mistake." And even that involved McMillen, curiously enough.
Call it "A Tale of Two Terrys." Ironically, Terry McMillen's Countdown destiny ended up (and ended) in the hands -- literally -- of fellow lower-budget racer Terry Haddock during the first round of the Aug. 15 eliminations at Brainerd. A Haddock victory over Dave Grubnic would have helped McMillen toward his goal of making the 10-driver playoff field. But Haddock lost to Grubnic and McMillen fell in the next pairing to Tony Schumacher.
Haddock said he had wanted to beat Grubnic "to help Terry, because the little guys need more support for each other out here. But I made a mistake." And even that involved McMillen, curiously enough.
Said Haddock, who raced with McMillen in the IHRA, "I put a brand-new blower belt - that actually came from Terry McMillen -- on my car. I was in a hurry and I knocked an alignment dowel out of the fuel pump. As soon as I hit the gas, since that pin had fallen out, the pump rotated and it pinched the off the fuel line. And it shook. We had a car to race, and it was my screw-up. It's sad, but you've got to admit when you're wrong."
In no way did McMillen blame Haddock. He didn’t blame anybody. Saying he was grateful to have come so close to making the cut, McMillen accepted the fact that his team that is so new to NHRA competition simply wasn't ready to compete in the Countdown -- yet.
"It hurt really bad at the moment, because my crew worked so hard to get us there," McMillen said. "After a day or so it kind of san in: we weren't supposed to be there yet. It's our first year here. There are guys out here who have been running forever who haven't had the opportunity to get as close as we have been. I feel blessed in all that. The Good Lord has looked after us and given us all the opportunity to go out there and do what we do."
He said Schumacher's round-win against him was simply part of competition and that if the seven-time champion and 65-time winner had handed it to him, "I'd really have been disappointed. I want to earn everything we get. I wouldn’t expect that out of Tony and Don's [Schumacher's] teams. If he had laid down, that would have been a big disappointment. They have a lot of marketing partners, as well, and their job's going down the track and winning races. That's what they do real well.
"We're just learning," he said, "and we're going to get better at what we do."
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