EPPING, N.H. (June 4, 2017) – The AMALIEⓇ Motor Oil XTERMIGATORⓇ Top Fuel team led by driver and team owner Terry McMillen experienced a career best weekend during qualifying. As in most sports, the thrill of success can often be followed by the disappointment of traumatic events. Such was the scenario for McMillen and it was all wrapped into one weekend known as the NHRA New England Nationals

“It really looked a lot worse than it was or could have been,” McMillen explained after his first round explosion. “Every piston and rod was in the motor. The intake manifold, blower and blower restraints are junk, but everything else is fine.”

McMillen’s Rob Wendland led crew qualified fifth for the event, the best starting position for the team since Denver 2012. McMillen reset his career best elapsed time in the second qualifying session with a 3.730 and then reset it again along with mile per hour in the third session when he posted a 3.723 at 327.19MPH.

“We were really feeling good about our consistency,” McMillen added. “We felt like it was our weekend to go deep into elimination rounds. What happened was really unfair to our team’s efforts and the farthest thing from our minds as to what the outcome would be. It was really unfortunate and in no way a reflection of our tune-up or maintenance program. The car started to lose traction early in the run and I slapped to throttle like I’ve done many times. We’re not 100% sure what happened yet, but something caused an explosion in the intake area and the rest of the story is sure to be part of a highlight reel. The car is back together and we’re ready to pick up where we left off in qualifying when we get to Englishtown next week.”

Professional qualifying for Englishtown begins June 9th.

TOPEKA, Kan. (May 21, 2017) – Despite consistent runs all weekend, Terry McMillen and the AMALIEⓇ Motor Oil XTERMIGATORⓇ Top Fuel team lost a close opening round match-up to Clay Millican. Millican’s 3.732 elapsed time outran McMillen’s 3.761.

“We’ve got a pretty consistent race car right now,” McMillen said. “We’re just going to keep sneaking up on making our early numbers better and hopefully start winning some more rounds. Rob (Wendland Crew Chief) has a great motor program and everything is coming back happy on that end. If we keep making good, fast, clean runs like we have been, we believe it will pay off eventually.”

For the second race in a row McMillen has posted the fastest losing time in the first round of eliminations. “It’s certainly frustrating,” McMillen continued. “It just goes to show how competitive the Top Fuel class is today.”

The next stop for the NHRA Mello Yello series is in Epping, New Hampshire, June 2-4 at the New England Dragway. It marks the first stop, of a four in a row race stretch, that has become known as the Eastern Swing. The Eastern Swing includes stops in Epping, New Hampshire, Englishtown, New Jersey, Bristol, Tennessee and Norwalk, Ohio.

McMillen will stay busy this Memorial Day weekend. He’ll be the Grand Marshall at the Kalamzoo Speedway this Friday (May 26) as part of the Lane Automotive and Allstar Performance night. He’ll also take the wheel of a stock car and participate in the Flip Flop Cyber Stock class.

On Saturday, May 27th, McMillen will make a car and driver appearance at the 29th Annual Lane Automotive Car Show.

COMMERCE, Ga. (May 7, 2017) – Terry McMillen posted one of his most consistent weekends this season in the AMALIEⓇ Motor Oil XTERMIGATORⓇ Top Fuel Dragster. His team’s efforts fell short in the first round of eliminations after posting a 3.772 second pass to points leader Leah Pritchett’s 3.699 pass.

McMillen and crew chief Rob Wendland made their best qualifying effort of the season, qualifying sixth for the 16 car contest. The the team effort comes on the heels of McMillen’s final round appearance in Charlotte just a week ago. McMillen has now posted five of seven qualifying efforts this season in the 3.7 second range.

“We had a very consistent hot rod all weekend long,” McMillen explained. “We came out here and ran a couple of 3.78s on Saturday and then improved a little more on Sunday. It just wasn’t enough today.”

McMillen was confident of going deep into elimination rounds on Sunday and wasn’t expecting a new track record from Pritchett’s team in the first round. “I think that’s what they call getting your butt handed to you,“ McMillen said shortly after the round loss. “They took a swing at it and hit it out of the park. There’s not much we can do about that except try and swallow being the fastest loser again.”

“We’re not going to hang our heads,” he continued. “This car is coming back clean and happy after every run. We’re going to keep sneaking up on our tune-up. No big changes, just figure out how to run in the low seventies and then on to the sixties. We’ve had a lot of firsts in Topeka. We’ll see what happens in a couple of weeks.”

Topeka marked McMillen’s first round win as a full-time NHRA racer and it’s also home to McMillen’s career first 3.70s pass last season. McMillen leaves Atlanta eighth in points, just over two rounds behind Brittany Force for seventh.

The next stop for the NHRA Mello Yello series is Heartland Park Topeka May 19-21.

CONCORD, NC. (April 30, 2017) – Terry McMillen and his AMALIEⓇ Motor Oil XTERMIGATORⓇ Top Fuel Dragster made it to their second career final round appearance at the 4-Wides. The race was contested this weekend at the zMAX Dragway just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. Although the team fell short of their first win, McMillen was happy with the results.

“Overall, it was a great weekend for our team,” McMillen said shortly after losing in the last round. “There were a lot of firsts this weekend for us,” McMillen continued. “We got our first round win at the 4-Wides and our first win against Doug Kalitta. Having the support of our marketing partners through all of this means a lot to us. We had Ken Holder from Amalie here this weekend. It’s always good to do well when your sponsors show up.”

“Our team is really coming together and I think when we get into these hot weather races we have coming up, like next week in Atlanta, I think we have a car that everyone is going to want to avoid on Sundays.”

This race also marked the one year anniversary of McMillen’s Houston crash that destroyed his car and set the team back from the performance advances they made starting the 2016 season. The 2017 season is shaping up to be McMillen’s best.

“Right now we’re one round behind where we were this time last year, but we’re one car ahead of where we were,” McMillen explained. “Our average qualifying time is 3.799 seconds so far this season and that’s pretty good considering we didn’t even know how to run in the 70’s before this season.”

McMillen gives a lot of credit to crew chief Rob Wendland and crew, Don Schumacher and DSR. “Don Schumacher deserves a lot of credit for the performance of this car and I can’t thank Don and DSR enough for the great car they built for us. Having their parts available to us is a big plus for our program. I think you also have to look at the stability we have with a top notch guy like Rob Wendland and the crew he has put together with Bob Peck and everyone else. These guys and girl have been together for two years now and they’re all really starting to work together like a finely tuned team. We had less than an hour to get back up there for the final round and they gave us the chance we needed to get to race in the finals here. I’m confident it won’t be the last time you see this green gator in the finals this season.”

Terry and team head next to the Atlanta Dragway May 5-7.

BAYTOWN, Tex. (April 23, 2017) – After a spectacular explosion and crash during the 2016 NHRA SpringNationals, Terry McMillen driver of the AMALIEⓇ Motor Oil XTERMIGATORⓇ Top Fuel Dragster was as happy as one could expect after a relatively close, but uneventful loss to Doug Kalitta in the opening round of the 2017 race contested this weekend.

“All in all it was a pretty good weekend,” McMillen explained. “We got a little behind in our qualifying efforts on Friday. It was good to get that first pass down the right lane behind us. We had a little issue with the number 5 intake on that pass and for just a second that thought runs through your mind – ‘here we go again’, but all of the adjustments that Rob Wendland and this crew has made did their job and everything came back in one piece. I knew everything was going to be O.K. after that.”

“Our motor has never been this happy,” McMillen continued. “Everything is right that needs to be right. We’ve just got to make it (the engine) manageable. It’s a monster right now.”

In the first round of eliminations McMillen was able to take a starting line advantage with a .071 second reaction time to Kalitta’s .093 seconds. McMillen made his quickest pass of the weekend with a 3.833 to Kalitta’s 3.761.

“We knocked the porcelain off of one of the spark plugs 3.3 seconds into the run,” McMillen explained. “We might have run a 79 (3.79 seconds) – probably not enough to catch Doug (Kalitta) on that run – but we could have made it an even closer race than it already was.”

“We made a lot of new friends in Houston. It almost felt like Gainesville with all of the friends and fans that came to see us. Of course we would have liked to gone more rounds and won the race – but we’ve got some things figured out for Charlotte and I’m really looking forward to the Four-Wides.”

McMillen remains ninth in points after the Houston event – just eight points behind Troy Coughlin Jr.

The next stop on the NHRA Mello Yello tour is the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in Charlotte, North Carolina, April 28-30. For more information visit NHRA.com

LAS VEGAS (April 2, 2017) – Terry McMillen and his AMALIEⓇ Motor Oil XTERMIGATORⓇ Top Fuel team defeated Troy Coughlin, Jr. in the opening round of the Denso Sparkplugs NHRA Nationals to move up to ninth in points after four races. McMillen fell to Tony Schumacher in a close round two match up.

McMillen pedaled his hotrod to catch Counghlin, Jr. at the stripe in a narrow .009 second margin of victory. Crew Chief Rob Wendland told NHRA, “Terry got that one for us. He did a great job catching it and staying in it. Sure proud of him.” The pedal job was something veteran driver McMillen was anticipating. “I could tell by the way that we were going through the clutch early that it may need a quick slap of the pedal, so I was kind of waiting for it. I knew we were far enough down the track and we were close enough that if Troy had any issues we would be there. I’m certainly glad that it worked out for us.”

McMillen and Wendland took a gamble coming into Vegas by introducing a new and untested clutch system with consultation from Johnny West of Wesco. Wendland explained to NHRA, “I already have a 3.70 car. I want a 3.60 car.”

“We saw a lot of improvements on each run,” McMillen explained. “We thought about switching back to the system that had us running like a bracket 3.70s car. But we stuck with it and qualified with a decent 3.82. This is an investment in our future that we think is going to pay like a loose slot machine.”

McMillen posted the fastest time in the right lane for round one and round two and while frustrated, McMillen remained encouraged. “We’re getting a little tired of being the fastest loser,” McMillen explained. “We’re working on qualifying a little better and having more fun on Sunday. We used to worry about who we lined up next to on race day. I think the tables are starting to turn. People can’t take us for granted any longer.”

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 19, 2017) – There’s a lot of history at the Gainesville Raceway, host of the AMALIEⓇ Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals, including personal history for Terry McMillen who fell one round short of a victory in 2016. However, McMillen couldn’t recapture the 2016 magic at 48th running of the event this year after losing an opening round matchup with Clay Millican.

“Needless to say we’re a little disappointed,” McMillen said shortly after the loss. “It’s not what we came here to do and I certainly don’t think today is a reflection on the performance improvements our team has made so far this season. We never really figured out the right lane this weekend and we just don’t have a clutch set-up for a tricky lane like that.”

“We just wanted to go one more round than we did last season for our Amalie family,” McMillen continued. “There were so many great friends, customers and employees here this weekend. We just wanted to give them a little more to cheer for on Sunday. We’re still a small team with a big dream and we’ll regroup and head to Vegas and see if we can’t do a little better there.”

The next stop on the NHRA tour is the DENSO Sparkplugs NHRA Nationals in Las Vegas, March 31-April 2. For more information visit NHRA.com

ENNIS, Tex. (October 16, 2016) – Texas is known for having everything just a little bigger and better. Certainly Terry McMillen and his AMALIEⓇ Motor Oil XTERMIGATORⓇ came to the Texas Motorplex just outside of Dallas with bigger and better expectations.

“We never come to a race to lose,” McMillen explained after his first round loss to Brittany Force. “We’re testing a lot of different things right now and we’re seeing progress in areas, it’s just not showing up on race day yet.”

The best part of McMillen’s weekend was the time spent with sponsors and guests. “We had a great weekend spending time with Rush Truck Centers in our hospitality area,” McMillen said. “Having Mike Besson and Fred Scott here with some of their vendors and clients is a treat for us. On top of that we the hospitality area gave us opportunities to spend some time with Ken Holder from Amalie and Ron Thames from FireAde. It’s always great when you can spend time with them and share what we do out here every week and see the similarities in our businesses.”

McMillen and his AMALIE dragster will be making a special appearance on Wednesday, October 26 from 11AM-2PM at the Tahiti Village in Las Vegas. Tahiti Village is located at 7200 South Las Vegas Blvd. There will also be a special “Happy Hour – meet and greet” at 17 South located inside Tahiti Village with a portion of the proceeds to benefit She4Life.

MADISON, Ill. (September 25, 2016) – This weekend started a little better than last weekend at Charlotte for Terry McMillen and his AMALIEⓇ Motor Oil XTERMIGATORⓇ team. After their first DNQ of the season in Charlotte, McMillen and team rebounded and qualified in the 13th position for the second race of The Countdown with a 3.895 at 310.41MPH.

“We’re still fighting new clutch discs,” McMillen explained. “We’re getting close to figuring out the combination that it wants for this disc, but we’re still just a tick off. These fuel cars are always right on the edge. It’s a gram of weight or a thousandths of an inch that is the difference between these things wanting to run fast or just smoking the tires. I’m confident our guys will have this closer when we get to Reading.”

McMillen lost in opening round action to Doug Kalitta.

Professional qualifying for the 32nd running of the Dodge NHRA Nationals begins next Friday, September 30th in Reading, Penn.