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- "Quitters never win and winners never quit," is
probably a good motto for New Wilmington’s Brian Miller.
The 38-year-old driver is making his third start in racing. Miller
is one of the top drivers in the pure stock division at Mercer
Raceway Park. The Wilmington High School graduate is currently
third in points and won the May 1 event, which was his second
career Mercer win.
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- Miller grew up watching his dad, Dave Miller, race at Butler,
Mercer, and Hickory speedways in the 1960s. Brian’s first
attempt behind the wheel actually came on asphalt at the Hickory
Motor Speedway in New Castle driving a 1972 Buick. He ran in
the Hobby Stock division, a division he said was streetcars unlike
today’s version of the so-called "pure stocks".
His first year produced two wins and a runner-up in points. Miller
continued to run on asphalt through the mid-point of 1986. Six
more wins came Miller’s way up until his switch to dirt
during the second half of 1986.
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- Miller teamed with Alan Dellinger, one of the area’s
best pure stock and e-mod drivers. The two ran all over the region
running at tracks such as Sportsman’s, Marion Center, Pittsburgh,
Lernerville, Mercer, Sharon, etc. Miller won four races at Sharon
and one at Mercer through 1990. Some of his proudest achievements
are his certificates for recording perfect attendance at Sharon
Speedway from 1987-1989! Miller stopped racing after the 1990
season.
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- Miller again returned to action in 1994 and raced through
1995. But his racing took another halt after the ’95 season
when his mother passed away and his family sold the house. The
next three years saw Miller’s whole crew work for Gary Reiber’s
#18 pure stock. Now Miller is back again in the driver’s
seat of the #99B owned by Terry Hoover. His goal is to win his
first track championship as he came up just seven points shy
of now sprint car driver, Joe McEwen, in 1989. He feels his only
chance is if Gary Robinson wears out his motor running more than
one night a week.
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- Miller’ career numbers show 14 wins including eight
on asphalt and six on dirt. He said, "To be able to win
this year and in ’89 is wild after watching dad all of those
years." Miller said, "It’s so tough with all of
the cars (Mercer averages around 40 pure stocks a night). I’ve
only had to run one consy in my life. I can’t imagine a
new driver in this division." Mercer has to run at least
one, usually two consies a night for the drivers that do not
qualify out of their heat to make the 24-car starting field.
Miller also really thinks it’s neat going to Mercer because
he has known Vicki Emig since school as well as many of the employees.
Her dad use to always stop at the shop.
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- When asked why the pure stocks, and why only one night a
week, Miller replied, "I’d rather be a big fish in
a small pond and I don’t like switching divisions. Next
year we are going to stick with the pure stocks, but branch out
a little and run some different tracks." He said he doesn’t
have any spare motors and with Mercer only ten miles away, and
considering they get done so early it just makes sense. He wishes
the rules were the same at the area tracks, which would make
it easier for drivers to run at the different speedways.
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- Miller said though he would like to run a late model someday.
But said, "The only way I’d be racing is if I didn’t
own it and if we have a chance of winning." Car owner Terry
Hoover of New Castle, a former late model driver himself, gives
him both of those opportunities.
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- Miller’s car is blue again this year, the same color
it was in ’89. He has a lot of sponsors that help keep the
car on the track each week. They are Fitzgerald Painting, Stan
Hover of Hover Racing, Plain Grove Paving, Bullseye Pub, NAPA-New
Wilmington, MAC Tools, Garrett Meats, Ardex Chemical Company,
and Trans-O-Drive of New Castle. Miller said, "When people
heard I was driving again this year I actually had to turn people
away because I didn’t have any more room on the car."
That’s a problem that most drivers would like to face.
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- Miller wanted to thank Alan Dellinger for help in building
and scaling the car, which took 2000 hours when they started
last August. He has Scott, Terry, Bob, Shawn, Ron, Lou, and Dave
that either helped build the car or work on it. Miller said he
estimates they put in 30 hours a week on the car, and while he
didn’t want to say exactly how much money they have in the
car, he did say it was in the five-digit range. As you can see,
racing is not for everyone, it takes a toll on everyone involved,
but Brian Miller and crew appear to be up to the challenge at
their third attempt at America’s number one sport.
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