to do, but I knew that if I asked him he was just
gonna’ say no. So what I asked him was, ‘Hey
Dad, if I go an eighth mile here, do you think I’d
need the chutes?’ And he goes, ‘Uhhh, probably
not here; I don’t think it’d go that fast.’ He knew
I was nervous so I think he was answering in a
way to give me confidence that it wasn’t going to
be that bad. He wasn’t suggesting I actually try it,
just that it wouldn’t be that bad if I did.
“But I go up to the starting line and we didn’t
even have a transbrake in this car, I was footbrak-
ing it just like I did in my old Mustang, and my
leg was shaking so bad going into the lights that
I had to stop for a second just to get it under con-
trol. So I roll on in, it turns green and I took off. I
remember going through my mind, okay there’s
a hundred feet, there’s the 330 mark, there’s the
660, I better lift and get on the brakes. Then I’m
thinking, ‘Jeez, I am really flying here,’ and I’m on
the brakes, I’m on the brakes, and I start thinking
I might need the chutes, but then it all seemed to
be slowing down okay and I remember making
the final turn at the end of the race track, but I
barely made it.
“I get out of the car and then my dad gets down
there and comes running up to me and he has
this look on his face that I wasn’t sure if he was
mad or happy. He says, ‘I told you to run to 60
feet; I thought the throttle had hung open on
you; I was about to die!’ So he’s freaking out but
eventually asks me to guess what I run. So I said
it had to be at least a 4.90, because I knew I’d
never gone that fast before, and he says, ‘4.90?
Try 4.28!’ And my quickest before
that was a 5.21, so yeah, that was
a lot faster.”
NATURAL TALENT
Kopchick was already working
with the Millers on fuel pumps at
Described by chassis
builder and former Pro
the time and Russell remembers
primarily throughout the Caroli-
Mod driver Andy McCoy
nas until he opted to take a break
telling him he felt like he managed
as a “100-percent natural
from racing after the 2012 sea-
to keep Tylor reined in for the first
driver”, Miller has evolved
son in order to focus on the im-
couple of years of his career, but as
from a underaged rookie
minent birth of his son, Trent. By
the cars got faster his son did, too.
with veteran instincts to
a proven threat in PDRA
“This kid, I put him in a Pro Mod,
the end of the year, however, his
Pro Boost competition.
dad had brokered a deal to put a
he runs almost a track record in
new Kopchick-built blower mo-
a car he doesn’t even know, then
tor into a brand-new Andy McCoy
stops with just the brakes and gets
Race Cars-built chassis and he wanted his son to
out and his hands aren’t even shaking,” the elder
Miller remembers saying to Kopchick. “He’s not
wheel the new creation in PDRA competition.
Miller says the only sticking point for him was
scared and he’s ready to do it again. What should
the car itself.
I do?” The answer? “I don’t know,” Kopchick re-
“Ugh, I don’t know if I want to drive a boat,” he
plied. “Throw the book at it?”
McCoy says that calm demeanor remains with
admits saying upon learning McCoy was build-
Miller to this day. “I’ve watched Tylor progress
ing a ’69 Chevelle. “I was never a Chevelle guy; I
always liked my Camaros or a Corvette Stingray
and the kid is just a 100-percent natural driver,”
or something like that. The Chevelle just wasn’t
states McCoy, who previously drove in the NHRA
a car that struck my eye, but my dad said to come
Pro Mod and ADRL Pro Extreme series. “I’ve
seen him get out of shape to where we see both
over to his office and look at a picture so I said
sides of the car from the starting line and then
okay and when I got there it was just a sketch, not
even a real photograph, but the sketch just looked
he just gathers it up and goes straight on down
so cool that I agreed pretty much right away.”
the track. He comes back just as calm as can be
Russell Miller made it clear he was intent on
and says, ‘Yeah, it kind of moved around a little
bit on me there, but it straightened out okay,’ just
going racing, but only if Tylor was his driver. It
like nothing happened.”
was an offer too good to pass up, Miller says,
After shifting to a blown ’67 Camaro in 2010,
especially since his new wife, Jessica, was on
Miller’s Quick 8 and Pro Mod career continued
board, too. “What did I have to lose? I mean, I
86 | D r a g
I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
had a chassis guy that builds cars for a living, a
crew chief who’s a genuine whiz when it comes
to motors and fuel systems and blowers, and my
dad who said he’s got enough money to put it all
together and make sure we have all the best parts.
I was actually thinking why wouldn’t I want to do
this? I was all jacked up thinking we were going
to be unstoppable, not really thinking there are
other guys out there with the same resources and
determination, but that’s actually what makes it
challenging for us.”
It definitely presented a challenge when Mill-
er’s Pee Dee Fleet crew showed up at Rocking-
ham (NC) Dragway in April 2014 for the PDRA’s
first-ever event. After McCoy’s father suffered
serious health problems late in 2013, the Millers
told him to concentrate on family first, resulting
in the raw carbon-fiber-clad Chevelle arriving
late to their race shop and even with Miller in the
driver’s seat it was well below the 2,550-pound
minimum weight for Pro Boost.
“I thought there ain’t no way we’re going to
make it, but I looked at my dad and said, ‘Seri-
ously, I don’t care if we have to get steel plates
and drill holes in ‘em to bolt them to the chassis;
we have got to make this race.’ So that’s what
we did, we bolted in lead and steel and literally
had nearly 200 pounds of weight bolted in just
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tylor miller