Just a few weeks away now. We can’t wait to get there. Check out the commercial for it.

Terry’s third attempt at qualifying for an NHRA event was another success. The Amalie Oil / Wolverine Boots & Apparel dragster improved with each attempt (16th in 2008 Atalanta, 13th in 2008 Vegas and 12th in 2009 Gainesville). Now if the team could just scratch out a round win or two everyone would be happier.

“We changed everything on this car,” McMillen said. “We’ve got a few more bugs to work out, but I’m confident Kuch will have us among the front runners before too long.”

The 40th annual Gatornationals was the first for McMillen as a driver and Florida Gator fans loved the Amalie gator-themed hot rod. Not only was the car a hit, but team jerseys were popular also.

“We almost needed a police escort,” McMillen laughed. “People we offering to buy our crew jerseys – and they kept raising the ante. It was tempting to consider, but we’ve got some people working on a special jersey for the fans. Plus, we were out of hero cards on Saturday. Gainesville is a madhouse of great drag racing fans. I can’t wait until next year.”

McMillen’s car was also featured on the front page of Thursday’s edition of the Gainesville Sun. The caption for the large photo read “Charlie Matero and Austin Lambright work on the Amalie Oil-Wolverine top fuel dragster Wednesday in preparation for this weekend’s Gatornationals.” The article continued on page 6 with another large photo inside the transporter.

Phil Burgess is the editor of National Dragster – the NHRA house publication. He keeps a notebook from each event and mentioned Terry in it along with others.

Here’s an excerpt:

…Back to Twitter for a moment. It has been interesting to see some of the NHRA race teams that are early adopters of the tool, including John Force Racing, Kalitta Motorsports, and Terry McMillen.

Force publicist Elon Werner is far and away the most prolific tweeter out there, sharing the latest snippets about the progress of the four Force drivers, links to articles about them, and more. Werner also was instrumental in the Twitter live chat that Ashley Force Hood took part in Friday on the FordRacing Twitter page.

Werner also was behind an interesting stunt at the track. He sent out a tweet to all of his followers (more than 900!) telling them to meet at the Force Racing compound in an hour. An hour later, he sent out another tweet looking for any of the followers who had caught his earlier message on their cell phones. Melissa Waterman shot up her hand first, and, as a reward, the Rhode Island resident, on her first trip to Gainesville Raceway, earned a personal visit with Ashley.

McMillen, who qualified for Top Fuel, tried a similar experiment from his Amalie Oil pit but didn’t give any advance warning. He just tweeted that the first two followers to come to his pit would receive a stuffed alligator, the team mascot. Both were gone within a few minutes. “I love it,” said McMillen. “It really goes to show you the power of the new technology.”

You can read the entire story at NHRA.com here (http://www.nhra.com/blog/dragster-insider/)

ELKHART, Ind. – After completing his first season as Top Fuel team owner and driver, Terry McMillen has set his sights even higher for the 2009 racing season. McMillen was two for two in NHRA starts last year (Atlanta / Las Vegas), including a spot in the fastest 1000ft field in NHRA history at the fall Vegas event. McMillen’s NHRA season will begin at the Gator Nationals in Gainesville, Florida.

IHRA success also came often for McMillen and his Amalie Oil sponsored machine. With four final rounds in a row (five total) and one win, McMillen is planning to hit the ground running again this season when they pull in to Baton Rouge for the IHRA season opener.

“We’ve worked harder and spent more money this off-season than we ever have before,” McMillen said from his Indiana race shop. “We’ve never been more prepared to begin a season than we are right now.”

McMillen hopes his off-season spending spree will pay big dividends. Besides the usual parts and pieces required to make a Top Fuel Dragster go fast, McMillen made a significant off-season acquisition in veteran tuner Doug Kuch. Kuch, who stepped in mid-season last year as consultant, will tune the Amalie Oil entry during the 2009 campaign.

“Doug is one of the top tuners in this business and we’re lucky to have him,” McMillen said. “I wish we had one of those big, go-fast budgets so we can turn Doug loose and let him show what he can really do. But, he’s proved that he can work with a tight budget like we have. He’ll give us an opportunity to win every time we’re out there.”

McMillen also added Glen Camp as car chef to his already strong team.

The Hoosier Thunder Motorsports team has also put together one of the more unique motorsports marketing plans. Instead of racing for a championship, McMillen will target specific markets for partners to give them a maximum return on their investment.

“Let’s face it,” McMillen said. “This is a tough economy and we’re extremely blessed to have Amalie Oil as a primary sponsor on our dragster. This season we’ll race more races, but in markets that make the most sense for our partners.”

This outside of the box approach has proved to be McMillen’s first win of the season. “We spent the off-season talking to our partners and all them thought a target market approach would be the best benefit.”

“We may not be running for a championship in the traditional sense. Our championship will be making certain that our partners get a better return on investment than they expected.”

ELKHART, Ind. – After completing the best season of his drag racing career, Terry McMillen, driver of the Amalie Oil Top Fuel Dragster, is making plans for an even bigger 2009 season. McMillen made five final round appearances with two wins in IHRA competition in route to a third place finish in championship points. He also competed and qualified in two NHRA events, including the 13th spot in the fastest field in NHRA 1,000 foot history during the ACDelco Las Vegas NHRA Nationals.
“We’ve been blessed with some of the best partners in the business,” McMillen said from his Indiana race shop. “It’s no secret that this is probably the toughest economy that most people have faced in their lifetime. It’s been tough on racers, race teams and on families all over the world. Our partners have remained solid through this down period and we’re focused on helping them grow even more during 2009.”

[Read more…]

LAS VEGAS — If you’re superstitious on a Halloween weekend at the ACDelco NHRA Las Vegas Nationals, 13 might not be considered a lucky number. If you’re Terry McMillen the number 13 can sound like a pretty good number.
McMillen, pilot of the Amalie Oil Top Fuel machine, took his team to the 13 position in the hotly contested field for tomorrow’s elimination rounds. McMillen will face Larry Dixon, two-time NHRA Champion and currently fifth in points in the Countdown to the Championship.
“We made it,” and excited McMillen said. “We’re having a great time out here. We came in here to have some fun. There’s absolutely no pressure on us. We just wanted to come out here and have fun. Drag racing fans are the best in the world. The NHRA fans our here in Vegas are certainly no different.”
Having fun in Vegas includes having the opportunity to be with guests and customers of Swelube, Amalie’s largest distributor in Sweden.

[Read more…]

LAS VEGAS — After making the fifth best pass of the afternoon qualifying session, Terry McMillen looked forward to adding a little more treat than trick to his second attempt during the Halloween evening session at the ACDelco NHRA Nationals. McMillen’s first pass in 1,000 foot NHRA competition and his first pass down the Las Vegas Strip, gave his Amalie Oil sponsored team hope of a keeping pace in the crowded 23 car field.
“We were pretty excited to come out here and run that 3.91 on what amounted to a baseline, shakedown run for our car,” McMillen explained. “We knew we had some room to make the car a lot better with just a few minor changes.” While McMillen’s second attempt of 4.08 elapsed time didn’t improve on his prior run, it was still the 10th fastest pass of the evening session.

[Read more…]

McMillen, CMT and IHRA celebrate end of successful campaign
FORT SMITH, Ark. — Fans of the CMT show, Trick My Truck and fans of Terry McMillen and IHRA Drag Racing have waited all season long to see who would be the winner of the popular Trick My Crew Sweepstakes. Several hundred thousand electronic entries were figuratively dumped on the table from CMT computers to find the one lucky entry.
Gail Williams of Hartman, Arkansas is the lucky winner of the Trick My Crew sweepstakes. While she is a big fan of the show Trick My Truck, she does admit to not knowing much about drag racing. Her first visit to a drag strip will be as a crew member on the Amalie Oil sponsored Top Fuel Dragster driven by Terry McMillen and his Hoosier Thunder Motorsports teammate, Paul Noakes, who drives the Amalie Oil InstiGator Funny Car.

[Read more…]

It’s one fast ride. Currently #2 in the world and it could be yours. With a Les Mellows tune-up and Paul Noakes behind the wheel, McMillen’s hotrod has been to five final rounds and won two national events.

[Read more…]

When you fast has to be faster, when 5 seconds is slow, when your best has to be better – Amalie Motor Oil.
Amalie’s new 30 second spot featuring Terry McMillen’s Top Fuel Dragster and the InstiGator Funny Car driven by Paul Noakes.
Heck, the whole team makes an appearance in this commercial at one point or another…. wait a minute, where was I?

Hoosier Thunder Motorsports morns the passing of Scott Kalitta. Scott was fatally injured yesterday during a qualifying pass at the NHRA Englishtown race. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Kalitta family.
The NHRA has set up a Scott Kalitta tribute page where fans, friends and fellow racers can go to remember and celebrate the life of Scott Kalitta.