WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.– It was less than two weeks ago that a brand new custom built McKinney dragster found its home at the Hoosier Thunder Motorsports race shop in Elkhart, Indiana, becoming the 2011 Amalie Oil/UNOH Top Fuel Dragster. McMillen’s goal was to have the car ready for its maiden voyage down the strip at Palm Beach International Raceway’s test session, the first weekend in February.
“This is the first brand new car I’ve ever had, and testing is important to me. I want to go into the season knowing what to expect from the car, and not guessing,” said McMillen.
On most teams crew members are also full time employees at the race shop so, having a car ready in two weeks would be a piece of cake. For Terry McMillen’s crew however, it wasn’t that easy. There are only three full time employees at McMillen’s race shop, and Crew Chief Richard Hartman is not one of them. So instead of having two weeks to get the Amalie Oil/UNOH Top Fuel dragster ready, the team only had one weekend in which Richard Hartman, five crew members and one UNOH intern joined the three full timers at the shop with one goal in mind – to complete the new car.
Was one weekend enough to get the new dragster ready to go? “We were literally in the shop until 4:00 a.m. Friday and Saturday, with only 4 hours of sleep each night, to get the car done,” explained McMillen. “Everyone was tired, but no one complained. I didn’t ask or expect them to work on the car until four in the morning. They did it because they are hard workers and they are dedicated to the success of our team.” Dedicated so much, in fact, that every crew member from the 2010 season is coming back for the 2011 season, which just might be the only thing McMillen isn’t changing this year.
“We already announced our new associate sponsor UNOH and that we have a new car, but there are going to be a lot of other new things going on with the Amalie Oil/UNOH team this year, many of which we will debut in Pomona. Others will be introduced at different races throughout the year,” explained McMillen.
“If you’re wondering about the new car having a new look – the answer is yes, but not at this weekend’s test session,” McMilled added. Understandably so, the team has put their focus on the performance of the car this weekend and not how it will look. McMillen will debut the new look of the Amalie Oil/UNOH Top Fuel dragster in Pomona at the Winternationals.
Set to arrive in West Palm Beach on Wednesday, the crew will be finishing up some last minute preparations on the car while McMillen and his marketing team prepare for 20 guests from Cold Air, a distributer of Amalie Oil, that will be in attendance over the course of the weekend. For updates on how McMillen’s new car does in West Palm Beach, check out his Twitter and Facebook fan page, which will be updated throughout the weekend!
