Terry McMillen Racing

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McMillen improves – but not enough for Norwalk

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norwalk2NORWALK, Ohio – The Amalie Oil / UNOH / All Star Performance Dragster driven by Terry McMillen continued to show improvement at this weekend’s NHRA event in Norwalk, Ohio.

McMillen made solid runs to qualify his dragster 11th for Sunday eliminations and backed up his qualifying effort with a 3.87 second, 323 MPH pass in a first round loss to Steve Torrence.

“I’m really proud of my guys,” McMillen said. “We’ve overcome a lot of adversity to get where we’re at today, but my guys just keep turning those Genius Tool wrenches and we’re getting closer with each turn.

“Although we hated to lose that first round our car made it down the track four out of five times this weekend – all with solid numbers, McMillen continued. “We’re really, really close to running some numbers that will go rounds. We’ve truly found some consistency that I think will pay some solid dividends over these next five races to make a run at the Countdown.”

McMillen by the Numbers

  • 13
    Terry moves into 13th place in the point standings just 22 points behind David Grubnic and 34 points behind Brandon Bernstein for 11th. Each round win is worth 20 points.

  • 4 out of 5
    Terry’s dragster made 4 out of 5 succesful passses down the track, each with solid numbers including big MPHs of 319, 320 and 323. Sunday’s elimination round even saw a half track MPH over 280 MPH

  • 7
    Number of crew members seen floating down the lazy river at the Maui Sands Hotel in Sandusky, Ohio after qualifying Saturday evening. No kids were injured in the floating adventure.

McMillen doubles up on semifinal appearances

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Chicago_rhm_6231JOLIET, Ill. – For the second time in as many weeks Terry McMillen drove his Amalie Oil / UNOH / All Star Performance Top Fuel Dragster to the semifinals. This is McMillen’s third appearance of the season and fourth of his career.

“When you sit back and think about this, it’s almost surreal,” McMillen said. “We’re now 12 races into this – three times we’ve been to the semis and five times we didn’t qualify, it’s a crazy ride but right now we’re loving it.”

McMillen was able to take out top qualifier Morgan Lucas in round one. Lucas had set the track record in Saturday night qualifying (3.737), but McMillen made his best effort of the weekend in the opening round (3.856 @322.11 mph) to knock out the number one qualifier.

In round two, McMillen and Steve Torrence gave the fans a show with a side by side peddalfest.  McMillen was able to make a textbook recovery, allowing he car to settle down before back peddling the throttle. His dragster settled down, hooked back up and still ran 297 mph to the finish line for the win.  Clay Millican stood between McMillen and his third chance of the season to make it to the final round, but today wouldn’t be the day for Terry.

“That’s another great weekend for us,” McMillen said. “I’m so thankful for our sponsors who have stuck with us through these bumps in the road. I couldn’t be prouder of my crew. They’ve really come together through all of this. These guys are dedicated to making this one of the best cars in the NHRA. I’m not ready to say we’ve got this thing figured out, but every time we go down the track we’re learning something and we’re using what we’ve learned to improve.”

The next stop for McMillen and crew is this weekend’s Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals, July 4-7 in Norwalk, Ohio.

McMillen by the Numbers

  • 4
    Number of career semifinal appearances. McMillen’s first was Atalanta 2011
  • 7
    Number of round wins this season so far. Best previous – 6 round wins in 2011
  • 137
    Number of points away from Top 10 with 6 races remaining from the countdown

Photo credit – Rhonda McCole – CompetitionPlus.com

McMillen rebounds in Epping with semi-final appearance

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epping2EPPING, NH – Terry McMillen’s season has been described as a roller coaster, the NHRA Epping, New Hampshire race this weekend just added to the season long ride. After a disappointing showing last week in Bristol, Tenn., McMIllen’s Amalie Oil/UNOH/All Star Performance Top Fuel Dragster rebounded in grand fashion with a semi-final appearance.

“We’ve been looking forward to coming back to the New England Dragway,” McMillen said. “We’ve had a lot of success here in the past when we raced here with the IHRA and we were hoping some of that luck would rub off here again racing in NHRA.”

McMillen may have found his luck in his old stomping grounds when a long-time fan brought McMillen a horseshoe for luck. “We might be sitting on that horseshoe for the rest of the season,” McMillen said. “The fans have always been good to us and the rest of the NHRA teams got to experience the New England hospitality that we’ve been accustomed to for years. This is one of Amalie’s oldest and loyalists markets and it meant a lot for us to have a good showing up here. Reserved seating sold out here weeks before the event and it was standing room only all weekend. I wouldn’t mind racing here every week if we can have the same kind of performance as we did this week.”

McMillen’s team won’t have long to enjoy those few round wins, the Amalie/UNOH/All Star Performance transporters have already left the New England area headed for the June 27th – June 30th O’Reilly Auto Parts Route 66 Nationals near Chicago, Ill. next weekend.

McMillen by the Numbers

  • 101
    Number of guests from Sanel Auto Parts that Amalie and Terry spent time with in the hospitality area this weekend
  • 1
    Lucky horseshoe provided by Wayne Russel – long time Amalie customer and friend to the Amalie Top Fuel team
  • 3
    Number of career semi-final appearances in NHRA – 2 this season (Las Vegas and Epping)
  • 15
    Number of lobsters consumed by the team Thursday night
  • 0
    Number of reserved seats available  – standing room only at this event – get your tickets now for 2014
  • 1
    Number of degrees presented by Terry in his lifetime. Terry was honored to present Jamie Blake, a UNOH graduate who earned an AAS in UNOH’s College of Applied Technologies Automotive Department. Jamie missed graduation to race Super Comp and start as a lead technician for Kieser Automotive in Needham, Mass.

McMillen finds consistency in Topeka – still falls short in opening round

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After struggling through the first few races of the season, Terry McMillen and his Amalie Oil/UNOH Top Fuel team have found some much needed consistency to their tune-up. After two solid qualifying passed in the rain shortened Atlanta race, McMillen’s Richard Hartman led team was able to put down three solid qualifying passed in Topeka. The effort landed McMillen 12th for race day in a match-up with Spencer Massey’s, Don Schumacher Racing Top Fuel Dragster.

While McMillen put up a good fight for the first 330 feet, a broken valve would finish his chance for a first round upset and provided a spectacular fireball for fans. No Amalie Pro 70W was deposited on the track.

“Overall it was a good weekend,” a slightly dejected McMillen said on Sunday. “We had a pretty consistent car all weekend and we would have liked to have made  a closer race out of it, but it just didn’t work out that way.”

“Topeka has been a pretty good track for us. We got the round win monkey off of our back a few years ago and now maybe we have the consistency monkey off of our back too. We looking forward to Englishtown to see what we can do there.”

“I’d also like to commend the NHRA Safety Safari. They  did a good job of getting the track ready after a night of thunderstorms. The lanes were as even as any place that we’ve been all year.”

McMillen by the Numbers

– 2 Top Fuel Cylinder Heads

Destroyed when a valve stuck in opening round action. The blower might also be a casualty, but the team will have to get it back to the shop for further inspection

– 3 Qualifying passes

Number of runs in the 3.80s during qualifying. A very consistent car for McMillen. The fourth pass was a test with new parts

– 60 Corn Dogs

The team seems to have found a new treat for their hotdog roller. Jimmy Dean would be proud of the number of breakfast pancake and sausage “corn dog” type treats they ate this weekend.

– 1 New driver for the Amalie/UNOH team.

Terry and Cori are expecting a bouncing new driver / baby boy on September 17. A succession plan that should keep Terry busy for at least the next 18 years. Baby does need a new pair of shoes… and a Top Fuel Dragster of course.

McMillen ready for season opener in Pomona

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POMONA, Calif. — It’s his fourth full season in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series and Terry McMillen, driver and team owner of the Amalie Oil / UNOH Top Fuel dragster is as excited about this season as his first.

“It might be hard to believe, but our team is more prepared and more ready than we ever have been,” McMillen said as his team arrived in Pomona after a short and cold testing session in Las Vegas. “We’re a long way from being the veterans of the sport like some of these other teams, but we’re as excited as our first season – just more aware of what it really takes to compete with the best of the best in NHRA.”

Along with high expectations for the new season on the performance side of the sport, McMillen’s Elkhart, Ind. based team was able to extend his Amalie support and add several associate sponsors in the off-season. “The out-pouring of support has been great this past off-season,” McMillen added. “The continued support from our marketing partners like UNOH, Flatout Gaskets, Carillo Rods, Wolverine Boots and Apparel, Clean Seal, Genius Tools, Allstar Performance and Ross Racing Pistons along with additional support from companies like Aeroquip Eaton, SWECO, Rivet Eyelet and Penray have given us the added support we hope will make the difference in our racing program.”

“Plus with Amalie stepping up their support and sponsoring the Amalie Oil Gatornationls in Gainesville it’s added a lot of excitement around our Amalie camp. If there’s only one race I could pick to win – that would be it,” McMIllen said.

McMillen made several changes to his team he hopes will be the difference in his 2013 quest to make the NHRA Countdown. “We’ve made some changes that should help,”McMillen said, “We added a few new crew members, moved our clutch guy Ray Murphy to assistant crew-chief and we’re keeping the car at Richard Hartman’s (crew-chief) shop in South Carolina. We think this will give us the extra attention needed to get our hot rod more consistent over the 24 race season.”

The NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series kicks off today at the Auto Club Raceway with four rounds of qualifying through Saturday and eliminations on Sunday.

Hoosier Thunder Motorsports Announces Sponsorship from Biomet

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Biomet joins Top Fuel dragster Terry McMillen as sponsor

Terry and ESPN reporter Dave Reiff share knee stories during a segment on the NHRA qualifying show.

Elkhart, Ind. (March 8, 2012) – Hoosier Thunder Motorsports, a leading competitor in the National Hot Rod Association’s (NHRA) Top Fuel Class announces it has added Biomet, Inc., a global leader in the manufacture of orthopaedic and dental medical devices, to its roster of sponsors. Biomet has agreed to sponsor Hoosier Thunder Motorsports for the 2012 season.

Terry McMillen, team owner/driver for Hoosier Thunder Motorsports, is a recipient of two Biomet Oxford® Partial Knees that revitalized his drag racing career. “Biomet not only gave me my career back – they gave me my life back,” McMillen said. “I was at a point in my career that I started thinking if I can’t get out of this car quicker I could be in danger if something happens. My old knees just wouldn’t work like they were supposed to. At the end of the day all I wanted to do was put my old worn out knees in ice.”

Todd O. Davis, VP of Global Marketing, said “Terry’s enthusiasm to share the message of his life-changing decision to have partial knee replacement surgery is contagious. When we recognize that Biomet’s products help one surgeon or one clinician improve the life of one patient, and this happens over 1 million times per year, we begin to appreciate the value and importance of our work. Terry’s story reinforces that message and our sponsorship allows us to continue to spread the word about joint replacement as a treatment option for those suffering from severe joint pain.”

In November of 2010, McMillen had reached the end of his rope. Due to his constant debilitating knee pain, Terry began to consider giving up the career that he loved. After consulting with his physician and exploring his options, he decided to get two Biomet Oxford® Partial Knees before the 2011 season began.

A quick 10 weeks later, McMillen defeated defending NHRA World Champion Larry Dixon in the opening round of the Winter Nationals in southern California, a thrill McMillen surely would have missed had he not chosen to replace his knees.

“With help from Biomet’s Oxford® Partial Knees, I can golf again,” McMillen said. “More importantly I felt safe driving my 300 mile-per-hour NHRA Top Fuel Dragster again.”

“My biggest complaint is that I waited too long to get this procedure done. That’s the message I want to get out to everyone. If you have a bad shoulder, a bad hip – or like my case, two bad knees, get an appointment with your doctor, talk about your options and consider Biomet for your joint replacement needs. I did and it changed my life.”

For more information, visit oxfordknee.com.

Not all patients are candidates for partial knee replacement. Only your orthopedic surgeon can tell you if you’re a candidate for joint replacement surgery, and if so, which implant is right for your specific needs. You should discuss your condition and treatment options with your surgeon. The Oxford® Meniscal Partial Knee is intended for use in individuals with osteoarthritis or avascular necrosis limited to the medial compartment of the knee and is intended to be implanted with bone cement. Potential risks include, but are not limited to, loosening, dislocation, fracture, wear, and infection, any of which can require additional surgery. For additional information on the Oxford® knee, including risks and warnings, talk to your surgeon and see the full patient risk information on Biomet.com.

While the patient in the story is a true recipient of this device, results are not necessarily typical, indicative or representative of all recipient patients. This device has been used successfully in achieving restored mobility to many patients. However, as with any implanted device, there are surgical and postoperative factors affecting performance, which ultimately result in unpredictable variable outcomes, including levels of mobility and pain. These factors include, but are not limited to, the patient’s pre- and postoperative health conditions, weight, activity level, and adherence to instructions regarding the use of the device. Due to these variables, it is not possible to predict or warrant specific results or patient satisfaction.

Drag Racing’s biggest preseason event to be held at PBIR

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Second Annual PRO Winter Warm-up to Return to Palm Beach

Jupiter, Fla. – Palm Beach International Raceway is excited to announce it will be once again hosting the PRO Winter Warm-up Friday, January 20 and Saturday, January 21 at the quarter-mile, all-concrete championship drag strip. The winter warm-up is professional drag racing’s biggest preseason testing event and the only opportunity for drag racing fans in South Florida to see the sport’s biggest names.

“Last year at the inaugural PRO Winter Warm-up, South Florida race fans saw some incredible side by side runs from the biggest names in drag racing,” said Jason Rittenberry, president of Palm Beach International Raceway. “Seeing these nitro cars under the lights is an incredible experience for race fans and I’m excited the teams have agreed to once again open this event up to the public and invite them to get a real taste of professional drag racing. We’ve got a great lineup of teams that will be participating again this year, plus a few new names to the list.”

Professional drag racing teams already committed to participate include, John Force Racing Kalitta Motorsports, Terry McMillen, Clay Millican, Bob Tasca III, Bob Vandergriff and Cruz Pedregon.

The two-night event will feature side-by-side runs and a shootout between the two quickest Top Fuel Dragsters and the two quickest Funny Cars. Gates will open at 4 p.m. both Friday and Saturday with runs scheduled at 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. After the second test session each night the drivers will be available for autographs.

Advanced tickets can be purchased online at www.racepbir.com. A special two-day advanced adult ticket can be purchased for $35. Adult single day advanced tickets are $20/Friday $25/Saturday, children 6-12 years are $10 and children 5 and under are free. At the gate Adult single day tickets will be $25/Friday $30/Saturday, children 6-12 years will be $10 and children 5 and under will be free.

About Palm Beach International Raceway:

Palm Beach International Raceway, formerly Moroso Motorsports Park, was purchased by a group of real estate and corporate investors. The newly re-branded and re-designed state-of-the-art venue is rapidly becoming one of the most popular raceways in the country for racers and spectators alike. As a leader in its operating form and function, PBIR seeks to provide its drivers with a higher level of challenge, excellence and opportunity. PBIR boasts three completely refurbished, exceptionally designed tracks, including a high-performance road course, an all-concrete drag strip and a 7/10’s mile karting track and new karting center. The technologically superior two-mile road course features some of the fastest and most challenging corners and straight-aways offered by any track in North America. PBIR is currently sanctioned by the International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) and is pending certification by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the governing body for many major racing events. For more information on PBIR, please visit the venue’s website at www.RacePBIR.com.

McMillen makes the most out of circle track experience

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LIMA, Ohio – Terry McMillen, driver of the Amalie Oil / UNOH Top Fuel Dragster, made his circle track debut last Friday in a dirt modified car. McMillen was set to compete against NASCAR driver Kenny Wallace at Limaland Motorsports Park in the “Tough Enough to Wear Pink” event, sponsored by St. Rita’s Medical Center to bring awareness to breast cancer.

McMillen and Wallace would find trouble early in their pink wrapped rides, McMillen with the wall, Wallace with an engine. The hot lap, warm up session, was all McMillen would see of the Limaland oval. While McMillen spun his #00 UNOH ride and backed it easily into the turn 3 wall, Wallace experienced his own problems when the engine expired on the UNOH #2 car.

“It was the first time I’ve ever been on dirt,” McMillen explained. “I told Kenny that if he gave me a 10-lap lead for an 11-lap race I would have a chance. But at the end of practice I dinged up the rear quarter panel and Kenny had the rods out of his ride. It was Kenny’s night, so I gave up my seat to him. I had offers to take one of the other student cars, but it was really their night and I needed more practice before I got out there in hot and heavy racing conditions.”

McMillen enjoyed the experience and jumped out of the car after practice with the same enthusiasm he has after a 300mph run in his NHRA Top Fuel ride. “That car kicked my butt,” he told the crowd that gathered around the car. “But you know what – that’s the last time it will ever happen. I will get back in this car and I’ll make enough laps to get competitive. Hopefully Kenny and I will get a chance to do it again next year.”

McMillen and Wallace both spent Thursday inspiring students at UNOH and Friday encouraging patients at St. Rita’s Medical Center. Both McMillen and Wallace shared similar stories about their early careers in racing. McMillen’s ‘persistence outweighs resistance’ and Wallace’s ‘your life won’t change until you change your life’ messages inspired faculty and students alike.

“It was a great way to spend a couple of days off,” McMillen said. “Spending a few days with Dr. Jarvis, Steve Farmer and Kenny Wallace has inspired our team to reach out for that next level – be just a little bit better than we have to be. That’s what it’s going to take to make our team great. We’re up for the challenge.”

McMillen is Tough Enough to Wear Pink – and will get dirty while doing it

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LIMA, Ohio – Terry McMillen, driver of the Amalie Oil / UNOH Top Fuel Dragster will take a break from straight line racing on the NHRA Drag Racing tour this week and try his hand at the wheel of a Dirt Modified car at Limaland Motorsports Park this Friday. The event will feature McMillen and NASCAR Nationwide Series driver Kenny Wallace to benefit St. Rita’s Medical Center – Tough Enough to Wear Pink event for breast-cancer awareness.

McMillen, currently 10th in the NHRA points standings, is used to turning left when exciting the drag strip at the end of a 300mph race, but this will be his first attempt to do so on a circle track in competition. “I’ve been getting a lot of pointers from Doug Kalitta (NHRA Driver and former midget and Sprint Car driver who won the 1994 USAC National Sprint Car Championship),” McMillen admitted. “I’m excited about getting in there and mixing it up with Kenny Wallace.”

McMillen and Wallace will also spend time off the track speaking with students and faculty at the University of Northwestern Ohio and visiting St. Rita’s Medical Center to sign autographs and take pictures with patients.

“Win or lose it will be a good experience for a great cause,” McMillen said. “Cancer is one of those things that touch us all either directly or indirectly at some point in our lives.” McMillen will wear a pink helmet that was made for this race by Vickery’s Speed Shop. “Dale Vickery has become a great friend to our team and he’s a cancer survivor,” McMillen said. “So, it meant a lot to him to make this helmet. The helmet will also carry the name of Rosalee Noble who is currently fighting breast cancer.”

Noble is the Fund Raising Chairman for DRAW (Drag Racing Association for Women) an organization dedicated to helping injured drag racers. “Rosalee does so much for others, we wanted to do a little something to recognize her and her fight,” McMillen said. “After the race the helmet will be donated to DRAW in her honor for an upcoming auction.”