Miller Shows He Is Willing to Pay the Price to Win Races

Chris Miller doesn’t try to fool himself or the reporter.

He has no designs on driving at Indianapolis, no notions that the break is coming, which will vault him into the starting grid at Talladega.

“Too old,” says Miller, 31. “It was always a childhood dream to race, and I got a late start.”

But a start, nevertheless.

Miller, a 1983 graduate of Sunny Hills High who regularly sees plenty of auto racing as the manager of motor sports programs for Fullerton-based Yokohama Tires, is a racing neophyte.

He spent about $1,800 a year ago to attend the Russell Racing School, a three-day course at Sears Point, and was taught the basics in a Formula Mitsubishi. Then he spent another $2,400 for the advanced class and drove a Formula Russell, an open-wheel, open-cockpit vehicle with the slicks and wings that are used in the Russell/USAC Yokohama Triple Crown Series.

Miller finished third in the three-race series, his first, over the weekend. He was in second place going into Sunday’s final race.

“After the first three-day session, I wanted more,” Miller said of the racing school that tempted him for so long. “It’s addictive.”

Russell, who lives in Fullerton, won the series’ first race after getting bumped and crossing the finish line second. A penalty was given to the offending driver, giving Russell the victory.

In the second race, also at Sears Point, he got bumped before even crossing the start-finish line, spun out and resumed from dead last. Over the next 12 laps, he passed half the field, finishing eighth in the 16-driver field.

“I feel pretty ancient out there,” Miller said. “The guy who ran into me is, like, 18.

The third race in the series was Sunday at Altamont Raceway Park in Tracy, a 75-lap race on the half-mile oval. Miller finished fifth in the race.

“This little three-race series is my first attempt at actually competing in a quasi-professional mode,” Miller said. “There’s something at stake and I’m racing against people with ability. I’m racing guys who want to move on, so if I do well in that. . . .

“I would love to always do some sort of racing. I would like to make it more of a business venture that made sense financially and from a competitive standpoint, and wasn’t a cash drain.”

Don’t think Miller is without skill, though. He drove a Porsche at Daytona during a test period for 24 Hours of Daytona and was invited to drive in the race.

“To do that and do competitive times, that’s a very good feeling,” Miller said. “I think there are ways for people [racing] like I am without doing it at the top level--like Indycar and Nascar, which is out of the question for someone like me.”

Miller doesn’t know how far he will carry out this adventure.

“It’s an experiment to satisfy the curiosity I always had,” he said. “I went to the Long Beach Formula 1 race in 1978. I always wanted to race, but didn’t have the right amount of drive to sacrifice what you have to sacrifice.”

He played soccer at Sunny Hills, then--with no experience--football for three years at Cal State Fullerton from 1985-87. He was a safety. “Maybe I’m a dabbler,” he said. “I just decided [football] was something I wanted to try.”

Finally, he got to the point where he could make enough of a sacrifice to get up close and personal with the racing industry he works so closely with.

“I’d love to race another series,” he said. “I’m talking to a couple other people, thinking of ways it can make sense. There are a lot of professional-level series you can compete in.”

Racing has a hold on him. “The speed is definitely an exciting part of it,” he said, “but it’s the rewards you get from maintaining concentration and controlling the car when it’s going fast in a competitive environment. And just wanting to do better.”

But the big time? It’s a longshot. “It wouldn’t even be safe to put me in an Indycar and turn me loose,” he said jokingly.

“It would probably be so intimidating, it would take the fun out of it,” he said, not-so-jokingly.

“At 6-1, 200 pounds, I probably wouldn’t fit, anyway.”

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Richard Buck, Al Unser Jr.’s chief mechanic since 1994, has been hired by Arciero-Wells Racing in Santa Margarita.

Buck, named team manager for Arciero-Wells, worked at Team Penske for 11 years.

The Orange County Motor Sports notebook will run monthly. Henderson can be reached at (714) 966-5904.