Off-season changes pay dividends for Miller
By Robert Holman
DirtonDirt.com correspondent
Daniel Miller's GRT Race Car has carried him to six victories in 2011. (photobyconnie.com)
SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. — Eight months ago, Daniel Miller was on the verge of shutting the doors on his race shop. Now he’s in the midst of perhaps his best Late Model season ever.
The Cullman, Ala., transplant who now calls Shelbyville, Tenn., home closed out the 2010 season with a rash of parts failures and a handful of DNFs. Miller, a regional racer who has a track championship and a cluster of special event victories to his credit, admits that he was at the end of his financial rope. | Slideshow
“Over the winter I was quitting … I’ll just tell you the truth. I couldn’t afford it,” said Miller, while taking a break from his day job at the Smyrna, Tenn., Nissan plant. “I don’t want anyone to think that I’m a quitter. But I didn’t know what to do ... financially. I’m trying to raise a family.”
For three seasons, Miller competed in middle Tennessee and northern Alabama in a car provided by Hall of Fame chassis builder C.J. Rayburn. But at the end of the 2010 season, when Rayburn asked Miller to return the parts off of his chassis and Miller’s six-year deal with engine builder Keith Watts dried up, Miller was left without a ride or a powerplant.
“C.J. needed his stuff back and I didn’t have a motor ... didn’t have anything but a chassis,” said Miller.
Overwhelmed, the likable 37-year-old was ready to scuttle his racing operation. Then, in stepped friend and supporter Donnie Walker, an Alabama native who has helped Miller for the last few seasons.
“He said, ‘I’m gonna buy a car, what do you want?’ ” Miller recalled. “I thought about it. I had a lot of success in the Rayburn and I really liked it, but I told him I guess a GRT. He said, ‘I’m just going to buy a new one.’”
“He bought it and we went and got it in February.”
Still, Miller was left without an engine. On the way to Arkansas, Walker, Miller and Miller’s dad, Ray, began talking about getting an engine. Ray Miller offered his help, on one condition: He wanted a Ford.
“We came across the motor and got it from Kuntz and Co. The motor belongs to daddy; the car belongs to Donnie. I just drive,” Miller said.
After securing the used powerplant from the Arkadelphia, Ark., engine builder, Miller, his dad and Walker began plotting their course for the 2011 season. It started near home with the Tennessee Super Series, with which Miller has since been on a tear.
Miller has won just six races this season, but three of them have been special events. He’s collected three $3,000-to-win features on the newly-formed Tennessee Super Series, an eight-race miniseries at three middle Tennessee tracks.
He’s also been nearly unbeatable at Winchester (Tenn.) Speedway, winning every time but one that he’s competed at the track this season.
“The first night out with the car, we had a power steering hose blow off,” said Miller. “We started 26th and came to sixth.”
Still, the path to victory hasn’t been easy. Though he has four victories at Winchester — two Super Series events and two regular shows — he’s been shut out at Duck River Speedway, where he is a former track champion.
A pair of traveling drivers swept in and collected victories during two Tennessee Super Series at Duck River. Bub McCool, of Vicksburg, Miss., won the series opener at Duck River, while Ray Cook, of Brasstown, N.C., picked up the Memorial Day Weekend event at Duck River.
Miller was eighth in the April race and sixth in May race at Duck River. Other than that, it’s been all Miller. He won the only scheduled stop on the miniseries at Thunderhill Raceway near Summertown, Tenn., on June 4.
The Tennessee Super Series points leader credits his turnaround to all the support he received in the offseason. And not all of it has been monetary.
Along with his dad and Walker, Miller also has found solid help in the way of crew members Timmy Sullenger and Bo Barnett, as well as from Chase Oliver.
“If it weren’t for them guys, I couldn’t ever have thought about racing. It’s unreal how it’s changed ... from breaking every time we’d hit the track to this,” Miller said. “We’ve had a lot of luck. We were lucky at Thunderhill.
”Chase started helping us with the suspension, he’s really stepped us up too. He’s really one of the keys. It feels really good knowing that we can still do it and I thank them boys every day.“
Instead of keeping the car in Alabama, Miller keeps the car near home at his father-in-law’s shop where he can tend to it nightly with the help of Sullenger and Barnett. From top to bottom, the changes seemed to have worked.
”This deal here came and it just worked out for everybody,“ Miller said. ”Really the biggest (difference) is it’s just the equipment. Nothing against C.J.’s stuff. We won the first five races that we had that car. But it was used. I’m in the best stuff now that really I’ve ever been in. It’s really as good as anybody’s.“
Miller is eyeing the Tennessee Super Series title. It would be his first series championship of any kind since he moved from mini stocks to Super Late Models in 1995.
”That’s what we were shooting for,“ he added. ”I never would have imagined that we would have won three of these races. Everything has been clicking really good. We still have a long ways to go. Anything can happen.“
The Tennessee Super Series is off until Labor Day weekend, when Winchester and Duck River will again host a weekend doubleheader.
