Terry McMillen pulled off an upset victory in the first round of the 51st Annual NHRA Winternationals when he defeated defending NHRA World Champion Larry Dixon. The win put McMillen’s Amalie Oil/UNOH Top Fuel team in 9th place after the first of 22 NHRA Full Throttle events.
“This is just an awesome day, because you have the toughest of the toughest teams out here,” McMillen told CompetitonPlus.com. “I don’t know how many times this guy has won the championship, but he’s an awesome driver with an awesome team. It was our day. He left a little ahead of me, but I never really saw him until he pulled up a little ahead of me.”
“Our car is really fast early. I know he (Dixon) left on me a little bit but we we’re right there with him, then he started to fade. I was pretty excited until our car torched the head and shut off. I was just glad we beat him to the stripe.”
McMillen would face Morgan Lucas in round two, but a broken fuel line would slow his pace to 3.945 against Lucas’ 3.858. “It was Morgan’s day,” McMillen said. “Those guys put two cars in the final round and that’s a strong statement from them this early in the season.”
The next stop for McMillen’s Amalie Oil/UNOH InstiGator Top Fuel team will be the Gatornationals in Gainesville March 11-13.
