March 3, 2022 • 49 mins
This week the guys sit down with 6 time World Champ, Clay Millican. From his humble beginnings, to his run as the winningest Top Fuel driver of all time in IHRA with 52 National Event wins, we cover the career of one of Drag Racings best. Sit back and relax as we hit the loud peddle on The Skinny.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Skinny with Rico and Kenna is a production of
I Heart Radio. Hey guys, I'm play Millikent, driver of
the Parks plus top Fuel Dragster and this is the
Skinny from the Fatheads I Wear Studio in Speedway, Indiana.
This is the Skinny brought to you by Toyota and
(00:20):
General Tire. This segment of the Skinny is brought to
you by Toyota. I'm excited about today's show. Here got
Rico back in the house with us. You've been gone
for a couple of weeks. There my friend out there
traveling the the nhr A circuit. Welcome back, Thank you,
thank you. Yes, I I've been out with our guest.
(00:41):
Oh that's right exactly, speaking of nhr Hey, welcome to
the Skinny, ladies and gentlemen. Ken stout here, Rico Weylmore.
We've got the track. Dude, Michael Young back there behind
the controls running everything. Thanks a lot to him as well,
by the way, fresh off of a race weekend, his
first race weekend of the year down there at the St.
Pete g P. How'd that go for you? Mr Michael Young?
(01:01):
Let's talk about Southwest Airlines? Yeah, how need you pick
up any vouchers at Southwest rumor hasn't Michael Young picked
up nine hundred dollars and vouchers from Southwest because he
took their option to change his flight. So boom, you
wait until I tell Roger Penskey you're getting docked. Great stuff.
(01:26):
And we've got a really good friend of mine on
the show here today, and you know, and we have
these these competitors, world class competitors on this show. And boy,
we've had no shortage of them, uh, world class athletes.
Uh there. Their mental fortitude is really what separates them
from the rest of us mere immortals, if you will.
(01:47):
And this guy uh always has a smile on his face,
absolutely a Southern gentleman uh uh about the polar opposite
of me whenever it comes to that. But he is
the true definition of don't mistake kindness for weakness because
he is also one of the strongest mentally, one of
the strongest people I've ever met in my entire life.
(02:10):
My good friend Clay Milliken will join us here today
on the skinny Welcome Brother. I'll tell you what, I'm
glad to be here, and it's an honor. I mean,
you got kid stout Enrico. I mean, you can't get
any better than that. This is gonna be fun. I
appreciate y'all asking me to come home. And he also
knows how to flatter us very well. Yes, yes, I'm
glad he's only your good friend, I mean, anyhow, so, um,
(02:33):
hey man, I want to I'm not trying to kick
this thing off on a dark side, but we're coming
up on seven years now, Uh, loss of your son.
How is Clay Millickan doing? How? How how is your
family doing? I know he's you think about him every
single day? Um, and uh, you know whenever I talk
about being one of the strongest people I've ever met,
and mentally that situation that you went through is just
(02:56):
horrific for any parent, of course, but the way you
handled it absolutely class acts second to none. And uh,
I know it's it's not My guesses are not getting
any easier. Can imagine what you went through. But but
how are you doing? How's the family doing? My friend? Oh,
I mean we're doing good. But that is certainly one
of those things. You know they say time heals all wounds.
(03:16):
That is not true. I mean you, uh, you simply
learned to deal with it. And you know there are
there are days, their their moments where you know, it
comes to the surface and uh, you know, things probably
hit me and Donna a lot different than they once did.
But there's one thing we know that you know, his
time here was done, His work here was done, and
(03:39):
ours is not. And so that what that means is
we've got to go out and do all we can
to to help others and do what it is that
we got to complete, you know, in our time on
this earth here. And uh, you know what, that little
dude had one heck of a quick twenty two year
run on here, did more than most people did in
a long lifetime. And uh, our work here is not done,
(04:02):
and so we just gotta keep striving. Yeah, And you know,
one of the reasons I bring it up is because
you're such a great example of of how how to
handle it, how you did handle it, how you're currently
handling it. And I think your words inspire so many
other people that that are going through the same situation.
And maybe they think there's no light at the end
of the tunnel, but people like you inspire and help
(04:25):
more people than you would ever know. Well, I mean,
you know, it's it's crazy, you know how many people
you meet at the races, and uh, you know, even
to this day, you know, I still have people come
up and say, hey, you know, sorry to hear about
your son. And you know a lot of times, I'll
be honest, you know, I don't want to hear it
if it's especially like if it's you know, maybe race
(04:45):
day and you're trying to you know, kind of get
in that zone and be ready to go racing. But
I meet so many people that say, you know, they've
had it happened to them, And the first thing I
do is give them a hug and say, hey, you're
part of a club that no parents should be a
part of. And you know, there's just like this this
bond there for people that have you know, been through
(05:06):
what we're going through, and uh, you just got to
know that that all of this has happened for a reason.
You know, we just don't know what the answer to
it is right now. And the one thing I do
know is, you know, Dalton would have been horribly upset
with me and Donna if we let that ruin our life.
You know, it affected our life, It changed the people
that we are, and it and it changes everything that
(05:28):
you do every day. But you know the best thing
you can do is is to put a positive on
it and move forward and just make sure that you're
doing all you can to help others and do what
you can to maybe help prevent you know, some parent
going through what we went through. Yeah, and uh, you
know it's interesting and I don't even know if you
guys know or not, but we sponsored Dalton and uh,
(05:51):
you know it was it was one of those things
that you know, I've I've known Clay an incredible amount
of time as well, and and uh, he was the
kid was amazing. And what Clay has said about how
the the amount of things that he did over the
amount of years that he was here is uh is
(06:13):
second to none. I mean, it's absolutely amazing. And uh
and you know he's uh he had a good teacher,
had a great guy showing him the way and uh
and and uh, Clay Milliken has always been one of
my favorites. And you know, teamed up with Doug Stringer,
which how can you not love Stringer? You know, uh
(06:34):
as as uh you know, as a team and uh
to watch the magic that they put together and to
watch the um to watch them slay the the dragons,
the big teams. You know, uh, you know it is
(06:55):
it is unbelievable to watch what they do and on
the budget that they do it. I know a lot
about it, a lot more than probably many do, just
with my relationship with these guys. But I'm I'm proud
to call call Clay a friend and have for a
long time. And uh, and yes, watching watching the way
he dealt with everything, and and uh you know him
(07:16):
and his family. Uh, you know, he was pretty much
right back out there. And you know, I think I
think what I knew of Dalton, I think that's probably
what he would have wanted you to do, right, Oh,
a hundred percent, no doubt about it. And you know
you mentioned Doug there. I know Rico, you and Doug
are are very very close and y'all are actually involved
(07:36):
together in the Jason Left for Memorial Race, which is
pretty cool, you know, one of the biggest midget races
there is in the country. And I know fat Heads
and Rico have a whole lot to do with what's
going on there. And you know, Doug and his friends
have done a wonderful job, you know, with the Jason
Left from Memorial Race and if you've not ever been
to that, that is one of those events that is
a must go too. Yeah, it's pretty wild. And uh,
(08:01):
I think Stringer is as bad as I am, or
am I as I'm as bad as he is. But
you know, the day that I met Stringer was you know,
he was he was running m I guess it was
called Bush at the time, but I guess it's Exfinity today.
But you know, he was running that and he had
the great clips car and you know, again was running
(08:22):
it on the shoe string budget, but was still getting
things done. And uh, I mean I absolutely fell in
love with the guy. Just an amazing individual. And again
he's he's another one that's got got a not quite
the smile clay he's got on his face all the time,
but he's got a hell of a smile on his
face even when you're in the in the final round
(08:46):
and man, I was pulling for you guys, buddy, how
did that feel? I'll tell you what. It was a
absolute wild weekend basically started off Friday night. I mean,
our freaking race car wouldn't even start. You know, It's like,
how does that happen? How does the race car not start,
but we're in a battle for the last spot into
(09:07):
the shootout, the call out whatever, you know, NHR is
calling that deal, and uh, you know we're trying to
stay in front of Doug Glitta and Shawn Langdon and
the car won't start, and you know, everything just kind
of like holy moly, you know what else can go wrong? Well,
what else can go wrong? We have our bottom end
guy that has has a family emergency has to leave
(09:27):
and go home. So now we're short of guy, and
we end up mixing our people up, and uh, somehow,
some way we end up in the final round, coming
up a whopping twelve doll short of you know, leaving
Phoenix with a wally. It was it was a heck
of a weekend. You know, it's it's kind of crazy.
We all we all have these racing stories of you know,
(09:48):
this was bad, that was bad, this didn't go right,
that didn't go right, and then the next thing, you know,
it turns into one of those weekends that after it's
done and over with, and it was so stressful and
so crazy that it's like, man, that was pretty cool.
You know, our supercharger guy was doing the bottom in
the driver guy was, you know, helping take the super
chargers apart, you know, and and the wind lights just
(10:11):
keep coming on, and you know, we ended up with heck,
we had basically the whole and trying Brown team over
there helping us get ready for the final, including and
Tron himself. You know. So you know, what was turned
starting out as a very rough weekend turned into a
pretty dang awesome weekend. Would have been a fantastic weekend
if we were thirteen thal better. Like I said, we
(10:31):
lost by twelve thal, So heck of a weekend. Yeah,
and and and you know, so I was we just
started our our program with the nhr A where we
provide the aerial coverage with the drone and uh, I
was all the way down at the finish line while
the old finish line, but i was down at the
end of the track, and I'm like, I'm on the
(10:51):
radio calling back up to the to the up to
the starting line, and I'm saying, what's going on with Meliken?
What's I'm I saw one car wasn't starting. I'm like,
what's going on up there? What's going on up there?
Because we're flying and we only have a certain amount
of flight time, you know. So we're setting there and
Chad radio back to me. He goes, Milliken's car won't start,
(11:14):
you know, and uh so and and I hate seeing that.
I mean, I hate seeing that for anyone, but you know,
I definitely hate seeing it for those guys, just you know,
the you know, the friendship and and and caring about
those guys as well as many others out there. But
to watch what they turn how they turned it around.
I did not know about your bottom end, guys, So
(11:36):
that's even that's even crazier. But um, to watch it
all go down, and and you said, and Tron Brown's
team jumping in, throwing down with you guys, that's really
what the NHR is about. You would never you would
never see that. I've seen it in sprint car racing.
(11:56):
I'm sure there's other places I've seen it in the
uh you know, the NHR A definitely never have seen
it in Nascar. They they may they may go over
and help flatten your tire so you don't get back out.
But but it's a it's a heck of a family
out there, and it's it's pretty amazing to watch that
all go down. Yeah, I saw they had that on
(12:20):
the broadcast where they'd mentioned that you had lost one
of your guys there and uh, and you could see
are on Brown's team mixed in there, and you know,
I immediately it was no surprise to me. I mean,
that's just the camaraderie. I think that's camaraderie really behind
the scenes of almost all racing. For the most part,
given the opportunity, what racers want to do is race
other people, and they want to race them at their best.
(12:42):
They don't want to take the cheap shot and beat
them while they're down. They want to say, I have
no excuses here, man, I want to beat you straight up.
So I know that those guys jumped in, but I
couldn't help but think, because you guys are such a
sinc up system, every one of those teams where everybody
has their own specific job and it's done a specific
way for each team, how does somebody immediately blend in,
(13:04):
even a bottom end guy that does bottom and stuff
for and Tron Brown isn't gonna do it the same
way you guys do it, So how does that work out?
I mean, do you have somebody follow up behind him
and say yeah, I think we're all good here. Do
you just let them do their thing and say we
trust you man? Well, I mean it's pretty it was
pretty fun to watch. Uh. You know, I was relieved
(13:25):
of my supercharger duties for the final rail there because
of this guy showing up, and uh, it was kind
of cool. So our car chief last year's is a
guy named Chris Newton, and he went to and Tron
Brown's team. So I think second round, I walk over
and I see Brad Mason, you know, car chief co
crew chief for Antron, and I said, can I borrow
(13:48):
Chris Newton? Because that was a natural fit. Chris Newton
was on our car last year and knew where all
the tools were, knew what the parts and pieces were,
and so he came over for second round and and uh,
you know then the next round we had maybe one
more guy that anyway, to answer your question, uh again,
(14:09):
you know, our people were kind of out of place anyway,
because we were short a guy, you know, our supercharger
guys doing the bottom in and so young Mr Matt
Sackman from from Antron's team. He was on one side
and our supercharger guy was on the other. So as
far as not doing it the same. We weren't doing
it the same anyway because we didn't have our normal
people in our normal places, and so they just made
(14:32):
it happen, you know. And and I gotta be honest,
you know, I know those guys are all pros, and
they were not going to, you know, put me in
a car that was gonna be in danger, and you know,
I ran that thing plumb past the finish line trying
to win that race. And that was just all there
is to it. But it's amazing to watch guys that
are true pros at you know, servicing nitro engines because
(14:57):
it is so very little time ESPEC actually in between
the semis and the finals. But you are right, you know,
sometimes you can get too many people in there. But
I don't know how they did it, But somehow, some way,
there wasn't even a lot of talking, even with the
extra people there. You know. I think maybe because Chris
Newton was on our car last year, he directed and
(15:18):
trwings guys as to where he thought they should be
or what they should be doing. And uh, it was
pretty seamless, to be honest with you. It certainly made
it a little easier on the on me, you know,
for stress level as to whether or not we're gonna
make it up there in time or not. You know,
I have had times where you know, I've got to
put my helmet on and put all my gear on
and get in the race car and strapped in before
(15:39):
we ever leave the pit area. And that wasn't even
the case for this final round. It was, you know,
kind of like unusually compared to first and second round.
You know, it was kind of like business as usual
thanks to you know, all the guys from over at
the Maco team. It was cool, great behind the scenes
stuff and good, good, good stuff. Man. All right, we're
gonna take a quick break here and we'll be right
(16:00):
back with more from the man that loves to wear
a smile on his days, Mr Clay Milligan. This segment
of the Skinny is brought to you by General Tire.
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(16:22):
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visiting General Tire dot Com today. Welcome back to the Skinny.
We have a great friend of the show, long long
time friend, Clay Milligan, has joined us here from his
home in Tennessee. We appreciate him taking the time here
(16:45):
fresh off of back to back weekends, really a three
peet weekend if you count the testing session. But we're
gonna take a step back here and talk about how
you got going in this business, because, as I recall,
you came from a family that just had endless amounts
of cash and you don't went to dad and said,
hey man, you know, I really think I could be
a professional race car driver if you could flip me
a couple of meal to get going, and uh boom,
(17:07):
next thing, you know, Clay Milligan's racing cars. Right. Yeah, absolutely,
that's how it happened. You know, I hopped on the
private jet and flew in and the next thing you know,
you know, I'm winning championships over on the I h
R side. You know that's uh, that is certainly the
fairy tale. That is a tale, no doubt about it.
I mean, you know, I'm just I'm still to this
(17:29):
day a Brackett racer at heart. I was a sportsman racer.
I still feel that way. And uh, you know, I've
been told many many times, you know, right place, right
time kind of thing. But the truth is it was
I met a lot of great people and and it
started with a guy named Raymond King, who then eventually
connected me to a young guy named Peter Lehman. And
(17:50):
the next thing, you know, you know, I quit my
job of driving a forklift in a Kroger food warehouse
after eleven years, and here I am, for one, I've
been paying my bills driving a top fuel car. I mean,
that's my life story in a very very short span.
But yeah, I mean Brackett racer race locally that somehow,
(18:12):
some way that I wanted to do this bad badly
enough that I got the opportunity and uh took it
and run with it and had never looked back. But
I do occasionally still have dreams of being at that
warehouse driving that forklift, and I wake up in cold
sweats thinking that you should put a little model forklift
(18:33):
on the shelf there keeping keep do you remember where
you came from, where it all started? Man, keep it humble.
You've always been very humble abou getting a Kroger hat,
you know. So so when you when you did this
and you said I'm done with the Kroger bit, what
did your wife say? Well, funny enough, she just walked
into the office here and she's trying to be really quiet.
(18:56):
So the opportunity came for me to get my life
in a top fuel car, which Peter Lehman was paying for. Uh, Donna,
my wife, of how how many years we figured this up?
Be thirty seven years this year? Awesome? Encourage me. She
didn't encourage me. She told me to quit an absolute
(19:18):
saint thirty seven years of that thirty seven years. Yeah,
it's crazy. But she not only encouraged me to quit
my job at Kroger, but she basically said, you need
to quit your job at Kroger. She knew how badly
that I wanted to race four living and you know,
(19:38):
she's like, here's your chance, you know, And I said, well,
I can keep missing days. You know, eventually they will
probably fire me from missing days to go racing because
I was racing all the time on weekends and missing
one day a week and all those sort of things.
And and she's like, just do it, just quit, we'll
figure it out. You know, she had a normal job,
(20:00):
and it was not easy. I'm gonna tell the truth.
I mean, you know back then we're talking you know again,
you know, late nineties. You know, you used to get
credit cards in the mail that would come you know,
already souped up for you bucks or five grand. Believe me,
we used those to pay bills. And uh took many,
many years to get all that stuff caught up. But
(20:21):
she was the one that pushed me to just quit
my job and and figure it out. And that's that's
what we did. You know, we figured it out. But
you know, it all happened, you know, like say, good people,
and and UH had a lot of a lot of
guidance and direction from from Raymond King and Peter Lehman
and certainly a supportive wife and family that uh, you
(20:42):
know might have helped us pay some bills along the way.
So when when when you when Peter Lehman entered the
picture and and he picks up Warner Trucking as a sponsor,
and of course you made that car, so successful over
the course of your h r A tenure. There was
there a conversation right there, you know, at some point
fairly early on to Peter to say, hey, man, is
(21:04):
there any way to work work me into the budget?
I mean some sort of salary into the budget so
I can dedicate more time to this team. Is that
how that conversation goes now? Not really, to be honest.
You know, at at the moment of knowing I was
gonna get my license, uh I quit. You know, Peter
(21:27):
didn't have an intention of running a full time top
field team at that moment. You know, he he had
put together a deal with the Chicago White Sox because
it was the opening of Route sixty six race way.
He's the Chicago guy, and I mean, for all we
knew it was that one race weekend and that that
was going to be it. I mean, you know, once
(21:49):
the that was in, so I went and I quit
my job May tenth of which was when I got
my license, and also my my older sisters of days
the reason I can remember that, Uh yeah, I went
essentially two years with you know, no paycheck. You know,
we had Donna and it wasn't like she was you know,
(22:11):
making millions because she wasn't she just had a normal job.
But yeah, we gambled. I mean, we gambled on on
our ourselves, you know. And uh again, you know, a
lot of people helped and make sure that we were
able to keep the lights on. But you know, Peter, initially,
you know, it was one of those things He's like, hey,
we can do this one race. And then the following
(22:32):
year we did I don't know, three or four or
five handful of races. Uh in Nick Bonifante's car of
Bonifly clutches Nitro Nick. Everybody knows him if they're in
the business, and you know, and then uh, Peter made
the decision to buy all the equipment, and we actually
bought all the equipment from Tommy Johnson Jr. And Senior.
(22:56):
It was their family equipment. And that was in two thousand,
my first year top fuel racing. I think I made
like eighteen thousand dollars for the year, which was you know,
killed it, way more than I had made the previous
two years. So that wasn't enough for the jet fuel.
Is that what you're getting out of here? Wasn't enough
(23:17):
to pay back all those millions of borrowed. Yeah, Now,
I I knew it was a scrap from the bottom up.
And we love hearing those stories because you know, there's
a million excuses out there why I, why I can't
do it, or why I didn't do it, and then
there's always people like you that blow all that stuff
right out of the water. So, uh, just just one
(23:38):
of those scrappers that wanted it desperately bad and and
fortunately for you, I mean, I think some things did
fall in place when you stumble onto somebody like a
Peter Lehman that that really brings a few of the
important pieces of puzzle together. And then of course you
do and what you did to make it happen on
your end, it's it's just a wonderful story. Well, I mean,
you know, this is a quote straight from my mom.
(23:59):
And you got to have the want to. If you
want to do something bad enough that you're willing to
basically give up anything and everything else there is in life,
you know, you can figure it out. I mean, you know,
for me, I wanted to do it, and and luckily,
you know, Donnad was was willing to not have all
(24:20):
the nicest things, you know, house cars and shoes, and
you know, you name it. We we did without and
until we were able to figure out how to make
it pay our bills. And you know, and she continued
to work a normal job up until two thousand and eight.
And since then, you know, she's she's raised our kids,
and she's you know, traveled with me to the races
(24:43):
NonStop since then, you know, and it's it's pretty awesome.
I mean we are together, you know, twenty four hours
a day, and and uh, it's funny. You know, every
now and then she's like, go to the shop, you know,
go do something. I'm sticking you in the house or
whatever the case. Maybe you know that's just the truth
to the ma. But don't you have something to do?
(25:03):
Don't you know, somewhere to go? Right right right? Totally
get it. And a TV star as well. Man, you've
done plenty of plenty of television broadcast along the way.
You've been blessed with a with a couple of different gigs. Yes,
I mean I have, I really really have. I mean,
you know, you and I've done a lot of cool
stuff together. You know, I did the Pinks all Out
(25:26):
shows for a while. I did a couple of one
show that was on MTV two. That was a lot
of fun where we you know, took kids from University
Technical Institute and had them build cars. And you know,
I did uh a show called Drag Race High which
was with high school kids, and I really really enjoy
that and and I now seem to have kind of
(25:47):
turned that into you know, the YouTube thing. You know,
you're talking a little bit earlier about you know, behind
the scenes kind of thing, and that's that's kind of
what I've been doing with with my YouTube channel, which
is you know, a lot of fun and and it's
a high quality production, all done with this right here,
the old I phone, and but you know, lots of
(26:08):
lots of people are watching and and it's been so
much fun, you know, to be able to kind of
share everything going on. And I've been very fortunate and that,
you know, Doug Stringer, which we talked about earlier, has
you know, not said a word about, man, you can't
be in the lounge showing what what's going on with
the tune up and that sort of thing. Now, I
don't always show the screen, but if you go and
(26:29):
watch what we're doing on YouTube, you are getting a
dent behind the scenes. What's going on with our race team.
I think while we were on here, qualifying from Phoenix
just popped up on the channel and you can see
my reaction and what I said when the you know,
the freaking race car wouldn't start after Q one. You know,
it's uh, it's all there and it's fun. You know,
(26:52):
the social media thing is huge, and you know, people
like Parks plus some at Racing, which is now on
board with our team, are warning those you know, that information.
They want to be able to share that with you know,
their customers. And and luckily for me, I like talking
a lot, and I don't mind holding my phone up
and filming it and you get to see what's happening
(27:12):
and it's fun. Yeah, So tell me, and I may
know the story briefly or partially. I should say, how
did you and Stringer get hooked up? Well? So I
met Doug Stringer through Lance Larson. Lance and he go
back to the Jim Eppler Funny Car days because Doug
(27:37):
actually was a crew guy owned Jim Peppler's funny Car
and the only way that Doug was able to work
on the car was if he brought sponsorship, which is
kind of funny that Mike Blober was the chief on
that car. And so you want to work, you want
to work on this, you gotta bring money. I've never
heard that. I like, yeah, yeah, it's it's true. I mean,
(28:02):
y'all really need to get Doug on here, because he
has so many great you know, war stories of of
all the things that he's done. But Doug Stringer is
a guy that loved drag racing and he ended up
going NASCAR racing to make a living. So back to
your question, how did how did Doug and I meet?
So Lance had introduced us and and Lance said, let
(28:23):
me know, Hey, anything you see great clips? You know
the Great Clips thirty eight car. When when Doug owned
the Bush team, uh Casey Kane and and the Hendricks
Motorsports car, you know, if you saw great clips, Dug
Stringer was involved in that. So you know, I am
the guy that you know pays his bills with racing
a race car that has sponsors on it. So Doug
(28:46):
started getting lots of phone calls from a guy in Drummonds, Tennessee,
you need to take great clips drag racing, and uh man,
I chased him forever and ever and ever, and you know,
it's it's crazy how it worked out. But he finally
invited me to bring the race team to the Jason
Leftra memorial party that they have before the event. And
(29:11):
I was driving for Dexter Tunnel at the time, and
so it worked out that that race was leading into
a match race the World Series of Drag Racing at
Cordova Dougs in southern Illinois. So we took the race
car by their unloaded it, handed it on display during
his party. And that was the turning point for Doug,
he said. He said, when those rigs rolled up his
(29:32):
driveway and rolled it down his driveway, he knew he
was going back drag racing, and uh, that was kind
of how it started. But I gotta add this real quick,
and I know I'm running along here. So Doug calls
me finally and he's like, I don't I think, Uh,
I just want to be a team owner, and I
want to know if you'll drive a funny car. I said,
(29:55):
of course I will. You know, I knew that was
way better than driving a forklift, you know, So I'm like, yes,
of course I will at least, so yeah, you know,
And so we get to the point of we're kind
of talking budgets and what it takes, and I said,
you know, this whole funny car thing, I'm all in
on it. Gladly do it. It'll be a cool new
(30:17):
challenge for me. Is something different. And then we got
to discussing the cost of funny car bodies and how
many you need, and dougs like you know that dragster. Thanks,
pretty cool. Why don't we just stick with that? So
that's kind of how that happened. Yeah, great stuff. So
from driving a forklip to uh to lifting blowers if
you will from time to time. We're gonna take a
(30:39):
quick breaker and we'll be right back with more from
Clay Millick. This segment of The Skinny is brought to
you by Toyota. Once again. Welcome back to the Skinny.
We have Clay Milliken on the show with us here
today from his home in Tennessee. Ken Stout Rico Elmore
joins me here on the set and Uh, I heard you, Clay,
(31:00):
I heard you say, before I know I'm running along.
Get rid of that internal clock. As a broadcaster that's
inside of your head. You can talk as long as
you want on the show. That's why you're on the show.
We want to hear you talk, We want to hear
your side of it. Many nobody care, nobody cares what
we're talking about. I can remember being on it on
headphones in a studio with you Ken and people in
(31:23):
my ear going that's enough, wrap it up, wrap it up.
So that that kind of just happened to me from
time to time because I do get on a rambling
role and uh, I may have had kin stout before.
Tell me doing you know, like, come on, shorten it up,
wrap it up. You know that's when we're on time stuff.
Somebody needs to do that to him. So you know,
(31:43):
that's beside the point. People, you you understand all too well. Now.
Rico certainly has a much better feel for it now
as well. And this is just a really relaxed show.
But people, I think smoke. I think Tony Stewart just
got a real good introduction to it as well, being
on the on the NASCAR broadcast. But as you well know,
people have no clue how fast the pace is when
(32:04):
you're doing a TV show. It seems like they're sitting
there relaxed. They got plenty of time to talk about everything.
But the truth of the matter is, man, everything is
short and quick, and no matter what you say, you
didn't say it quick enough. Oh that's for sure. I'd
like to say I learned that. And uh man, I'm
trying to think. I don't know how many shows that
you and I did together, but it was a lot.
(32:29):
I don't even remember what studio we did that stuff
in somewhere near did we? Oh? Do we do him
in Chicago? Because I did those also down in North
Carolina For a while I was doing some some h
R stuff in North Carolina, so bounced around. Yeah. I
don't know either, but uh, you know, working together, I
know for sure for for a while there. It's it's
funny that, you know. So we were at I think
(32:53):
we were at Norwalk. Is that where you guys ran
a lot clay Norwalk? Yeah, so did I was. I
was at Norwalk. Uh, and we were riding around on
the golf cart, me and dom Logana. Okay, and he goes,
go down this way, right down here, go down this way.
I'm driving the golf cart down there. I'm like, where
where are we going? You know? And he goes, no, seriously,
(33:16):
go right down here. You can stop right here and
I stopped. He says, you see that right there He
points over. I said yeah. He said, that was Clay
Milliken's pit. He was the only guy that had a
concrete pad. The rest of us were in the dirt.
I knew where you were going because they Because Bill
Baiter being Bill Baiter, he created the thing saying, if
(33:37):
you want a concrete pad, you can pour it and
that'll be yours. And he gets gets the pits concreted
by the racers. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean that was
a pent. Peter Lehman moved right there because every every
time we showed it at Norwalk, you know, we were
making a run to the to the you know, the
(33:58):
lumber yard and buying piles of plywood because you can't
work on the top fuel car in the grass. You know,
it's it's hard to do. And so Peter called Bill Sr.
And said, you know, hey, I want to pave my spot.
And he's like, you are not paving anything on my brass,
you know, Bill Senior, Bill Jr. Same way. They love
their grass there at Norwalk, and he's like, not happening.
(34:21):
But you can pour a spot of concrete. You can
do that. And something that will laugh forever. Yeah, yeah,
he hung up on him, called the concrete company right away.
And and so yes, for many many years we had
the only concrete spot. And I go and visit that
every year every year myself. It's pretty cool to hear
Dom took you over there to show you that, because
(34:43):
I still go visit it too, because we want a
lot of races off of that concrete spot right there,
and and and that's exactly what he said. I mean,
that was where he was going with it. He was
like Clay Milk and wore people out off of that
concrete pad right there, and he was It was just
so cool to hear the story. And then uh, and
I of course, you know, seeing you out at the
(35:05):
track and completely space it. But I just thought that
was so cool that you know that that was that
was what he was he was wanting to go look at.
So let's talk a little bit about those uh those
magical I h R A years and two thousand you
finally go full time racing two thousand one, Boy, you
unleased on everybody. Six top Fuel championships from O one
(35:28):
to two thousand six, uh fifty two national event wins,
sixty appearances in top Fuel and final round over the
course of those times, nobody's surpassed that. By the way,
these records will never be be broken because of and
in large part because of rule changes and and just
what has happened over the course of time. But uh,
(35:48):
uh unbelievable. You want sixty of all the races entered
from two thousand one to two thousand six, the only
driver to advanced to every final round in a single season,
the most consecutive Top Fuel event wins at ten, the
most consecutive round wins, and all of top fuel racing
with thirty consecutive wins. That's unbelievable. And the most wins
(36:12):
in a season with eleven. I mean, the list goes
on and on and on. You'll you'll retire the h
r A world record and top fuel the laps time
of four uh three eight miles an hour, that's quarter mile,
so we know that one won't be broken. What you
guys did over there, uh nothing short of exceptional, my friend.
I mean, you just continued to pound on those guys.
(36:35):
You know that's stuff. It don't even make sense. Yeah,
you know, our bracket raced and and you know Sportsman
raced enough to know that that kind of stuff is
really really not supposed to happen. You know, what we
did was certainly it was just a magical run, right people,
right right everything, you know, and the rules fit our combination.
(36:58):
You know. The HR rules were pretty stiff, you know,
and that you can only run the supercharger at over.
You know, it was just I don't know, we had
a magical combination. And and the truth is we were
highly disappointed if we did not win the race, which
is crazy to believe. And I gotta tell this right quick.
(37:19):
So two of the guys that worked on that Werner car,
one of them is named Justin Crossland. He worked with
me for eleven years. We hired him right out of
high school. Another guy named Chris Martin came from the
same little town in Winnatchi, Washington. He worked with me
for ten years, justin Crossland. When he started, he worked
(37:43):
for two full race seasons as this fresh out of
high school kid that we never went to the race
track with him for two years that we didn't go
to the final. Now I'm not saying we wont every
one of them, but for two years straight, every race
he went to, we went to the final. Ruined that guy. Well,
(38:10):
well he's this, this is this story gets better with
these two. So when kind of my time came to
an end with the team being based here in in
my little area of near Drummonds, Tennessee, those two guys
went to work for somebody y'all may have heard of.
That's one a few races in the last few years
(38:32):
named Steve Torrens. So think about what those two guys
have done. They went from what we did essentially all
almost all of my HR stuff and rolled right over
to Steve torres. So their winning record has got to
be ridiculous. I mean it's got to be up there
with the best of the best. You know, if you
(38:55):
combine what they did on the Werner car and what
they're doing, you know with the CapCo car right now,
I mean that's pretty crazy. But ken back to those
numbers and stuff. I hear that stuff every now and
then and it's just, you know, it certainly makes me smile,
but you know it, Uh, it's it's pretty cool. I
have to tell the truth. You know, I've got thirty
(39:18):
six of those trophies are in my living room just
because when we built this house that I live in,
I had maybe a handful of them. And my best
friend is who built my house, and we measured one
of the iron Men and he built this massive cabinet
that my TV is in. And I never thought ever
(39:42):
that that cabinet would not hold all of them. You know,
that's just hard to believe. And and I'm kind of
embarrassed to say that the you know, the World Championship
trophies are actually they're wrapped in plastic, but they're they're
above me in the attic right now, because, uh, we
run out of room. Him. We built a cabinet that
would hold thirty six iron man in and we overflowed it.
(40:03):
So that's a good problem. I got a question for you.
I'm gonna ask you something here because I lived this
experience and I'm curious if if you've ever felt the
same way. So over a course of a couple of years,
my son had some great some great success, and I
think it was two thousand and ten, he he became
the youngest champion in the Perili World Challenge Series at
(40:25):
the time, I think it was was twenty five or
twenty eight years old. So he just had an incredible
run that season. It was his rookie year, most laps led,
most cars passed, we won races where like you said before,
you just did things that that we know now in
racing just typically do not happen. I mean, somebody blew
(40:46):
the end of the end of the straightaway, blew the turn,
hit him so hard they shot up over the top
of the car, landing on top of the car, knocked
him off the track, and he came back and somehow
still manage a podium, you know, at the end of
the race. So it was just those types of one
of those reasons that that went magical, and and we
had a couple of those years, and it got to
the point where we're looking at it and I'm thinking
(41:08):
to myself, you know, this is just too easy. I mean,
we need to get up where there's more competition or
something needs to change here, because this isn't how racing,
is it. It doesn't happen like this. This is just
too easy. And then all of a sudden you get
one of those years where the slightest little touch from
a car cuts a tire down and you're out in
(41:29):
the first two laps of the race and boom it
just it's snowballs. The other way, and you're like, you've
got to be kidding me. Man, We're better than this.
I know we're better than this. So the question here is,
was there ever a time in your career where you
thought yourself, Man, this is this is just too easy.
We need to change our game. And it's just because
the racing gods have decided to smile on you and
(41:51):
things are coming really easy. But it is never easy.
And boy, I'll tell you that that coin can flip
the other way in a second. Oh, no question about
it again. You know, for me, I knew I had,
you know, gotten my my butt kicked enough times sportsman racing,
and you know, so I knew what we were doing
was magical and and I'm gonna kind of turn this
(42:14):
into a little bit of something a little different, you know,
because people, you know, even now still ask me, it's like, man,
you were so dominant in h R, how come you
can't do that in NHR. Well, if you go back
and look during I don't know, just pick a year, oh,
four oh five, whatever, when we were crushing everything in
the HR, we were doing you know, a handful of
(42:36):
racist on the NHR side of things, while handicapping ourselves
with the over on the supercharger because our job was
racing the h R. Weren't er paid us to racing
the h R. So we would go do the NHR
races and kind of look at that as testing. But
we went to three consecutive final rounds one year on
(43:00):
the NHR A side of things. Now, they were three
runner ups, but we were, you know, kind of giving
ourselves that challenge of hand one, handicapping ourselves at over
on the supercharger and to racing you know, the larger
series and still going over there and going around. So,
I mean, there was I can't even remember we raced
(43:21):
Kenny Bernstein in one final and I can now tell
this story and I haven't. I really honestly haven't shared
this a whole lot. But why not. Y'all are friends,
you know, it's just us watching this, right wink wink?
You know. Uh. The truth of the matter is, and
I'm not saying we did this because we did it,
(43:43):
but we had instructions straight from Mr Greg Warner, president
of Warner Enterprises, to never ever, ever, under any circumstances,
beat the Budweiser car. Uh. Warner Enterprises did about how
a billion dollars a year of business. I just getting
(44:05):
ready to ask that's why it was, Yeah, about a
half a billion a year in business. Yeah. We did
race the Budweiser car in the final. We did not
own purpose, smoked the tires and that's the truth. We
did not h We got beat by the Budweiser car.
I think that was Houston. The following race was Bristol.
(44:27):
UH lost to the Army car in the final round,
which at that point a lot of people were losing
to that. Alan Johnson tuned Army car. We smoked the
tires and blew up, and Tony smoked the tires and
blew up a little further down the racetrack, and we did.
And then we raced Corey Mack in the final in Atlanta.
So that was, you know, three runner ups that we
(44:49):
had while our job was racing the h R side
of things. So you know, but what we did and
what was going on in that that time frame, you know,
was certainly certainly certainly unbelievable time and much appreciated. And
I probably don't you know, think about that often enough
to uh to appreciate it, and I know I will
(45:10):
one of these days. I don't have any intentions equipment
anytime soon. But but those trophies that I was talking
about upstairs, one of these days they'll come. They'll come
down and get unwrapped out of the plastic, and uh,
I'll kick back and and wait on people to stop
by the house and tell stories about them. I'm sure.
I mean, you've got what about another forty years? Chris
caramel se and he just shut her down like ninety,
(45:33):
didn't he? So you should be good. Yeah, I don't
have any intentions equipment anytime soon. And the truth is,
I'm you know, I'm having as much fun as I've
ever had doing this. Uh. A few years ago I
got on a health kick. I'm probably at fifty six
years old, I am probably now healthier than that I've
(45:54):
ever been. And that's being truthful. Uh. I mean just
yesterday you can go check out on the Instagram and Facebook.
I was, I don't know, up a tree with a
chainsaw cutting limbs out from ice storm at fifty six
years old, and and of course I got hammered on
on the comments about doing that. But I don't feel old,
(46:15):
and I don't intend my bat feels old. Let me
say that. But Yeah, I feel good driving the race
car right now. I'm having a whole lot of fun
and and now I feel like, you know, I've done
it for long enough that that I can roll with
the punches probably a little easier, you know. The highs
and lows are not so dramatic anymore as they once were,
you know, And uh, I just I love it. Awesome stuff. Man, Well,
(46:40):
we wish you the best of luck. Man. You've given
us some great races over the course of your career,
of course, and watching you scrap from the bottom and
not only make it, but be very very successful at it.
Stepping up the run with the competitors nhr A doesn't
come any more difficult than that, and certainly have proven
your worth out to it to be in in that
(47:01):
league where the rest of those guys fresh off that
final round there just a few days ago at Phoenix,
and uh, certainly a worthy title contender. Man. We wish
you the absolute best of course going forward here in
two And thanks for taking the time, my friend. Well,
I absolutely appreciate. I was honored that y'all asked me
to be a part of the show. And and uh,
(47:23):
it doesn't get any better than sitting down with you
two to tell war stories. And in this case, you know,
we're doing it for the world to see, and that
there's a lot of stories that get told that you
know what, maybe want some food drive and we'll tell
some more of those. We look forward to that as well. Man. Uh,
we'll all have plenty to tell once we don't have
(47:44):
to worry about being politically correct. Yeah, and thank you
for supporting our product with fath Heads. It's been a long,
long relationship and uh, it means a lot to me.
You were you were one of the few that was
there early and still here today, so it means a
lot to us for sure. Absolutely. I mean that's uh,
that's one of those relationships that that started with Dalton
(48:07):
with wearing the fat Heads goggles in his motocross career,
and and me and you have been buddies for many
many years. Same as as kin there, that's for sure.
The only thing that that that we don't have is
that silky smooth kin stout voice. We just don't have that, Rico.
But we just don't have that, I know. It's so
(48:28):
it's so Ricco's got some pipes on him. Man, Let's
listen to we can talk offline about a restaurant incident
with he and I and maybe a few too many
UH beverages. We told him, We warned them, but they
didn't listen. Pretty soon they pulled the curtain clearly. Nice shade,
bro Blay Millikan, Uh once again, thanks a lot, my friend.
(48:54):
It's It's been a great time and best of luck
the rest of the year. Guys, thank you so much.
Appreciate to let me come up. Thanks for being with
us here on the Skinny. This episode has been brought
to you by say Yota and General Tires for the
latest and sunglasses, optical frames, accessories and apparel. Be sure
(49:14):
to check out batheads dot com bats fat Heads with
a Z. Production facilities provided by fat Heads I Wear Studios.
(49:40):
All rights reserved. The Skinny with Rico and Kenna is
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, form
my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Skinny with Rico and Kenna is a production of
I Heart Radio. Hey guys, I'm play Millikent, driver of
the Parks plus top Fuel Dragster and this is the
Skinny from the Fatheads I Wear Studio in Speedway, Indiana.
This is the Skinny brought to you by Toyota and
(00:20):
General Tire. This segment of the Skinny is brought to
you by Toyota. I'm excited about today's show. Here got
Rico back in the house with us. You've been gone
for a couple of weeks. There my friend out there
traveling the the nhr A circuit. Welcome back, Thank you,
thank you. Yes, I I've been out with our guest.
(00:41):
Oh that's right exactly, speaking of nhr Hey, welcome to
the Skinny, ladies and gentlemen. Ken stout here, Rico Weylmore.
We've got the track. Dude, Michael Young back there behind
the controls running everything. Thanks a lot to him as well,
by the way, fresh off of a race weekend, his
first race weekend of the year down there at the St.
Pete g P. How'd that go for you? Mr Michael Young?
(01:01):
Let's talk about Southwest Airlines? Yeah, how need you pick
up any vouchers at Southwest rumor hasn't Michael Young picked
up nine hundred dollars and vouchers from Southwest because he
took their option to change his flight. So boom, you
wait until I tell Roger Penskey you're getting docked. Great stuff.
(01:26):
And we've got a really good friend of mine on
the show here today, and you know, and we have
these these competitors, world class competitors on this show. And boy,
we've had no shortage of them, uh, world class athletes.
Uh there. Their mental fortitude is really what separates them
from the rest of us mere immortals, if you will.
(01:47):
And this guy uh always has a smile on his face,
absolutely a Southern gentleman uh uh about the polar opposite
of me whenever it comes to that. But he is
the true definition of don't mistake kindness for weakness because
he is also one of the strongest mentally, one of
the strongest people I've ever met in my entire life.
(02:10):
My good friend Clay Milliken will join us here today
on the skinny Welcome Brother. I'll tell you what, I'm
glad to be here, and it's an honor. I mean,
you got kid stout Enrico. I mean, you can't get
any better than that. This is gonna be fun. I
appreciate y'all asking me to come home. And he also
knows how to flatter us very well. Yes, yes, I'm
glad he's only your good friend, I mean, anyhow, so, um,
(02:33):
hey man, I want to I'm not trying to kick
this thing off on a dark side, but we're coming
up on seven years now, Uh, loss of your son.
How is Clay Millickan doing? How? How how is your
family doing? I know he's you think about him every
single day? Um, and uh, you know whenever I talk
about being one of the strongest people I've ever met,
and mentally that situation that you went through is just
(02:56):
horrific for any parent, of course, but the way you
handled it absolutely class acts second to none. And uh,
I know it's it's not My guesses are not getting
any easier. Can imagine what you went through. But but
how are you doing? How's the family doing? My friend? Oh,
I mean we're doing good. But that is certainly one
of those things. You know they say time heals all wounds.
(03:16):
That is not true. I mean you, uh, you simply
learned to deal with it. And you know there are
there are days, their their moments where you know, it
comes to the surface and uh, you know, things probably
hit me and Donna a lot different than they once did.
But there's one thing we know that you know, his
time here was done, His work here was done, and
(03:39):
ours is not. And so that what that means is
we've got to go out and do all we can
to to help others and do what it is that
we got to complete, you know, in our time on
this earth here. And uh, you know what, that little
dude had one heck of a quick twenty two year
run on here, did more than most people did in
a long lifetime. And uh, our work here is not done,
(04:02):
and so we just gotta keep striving. Yeah, And you know,
one of the reasons I bring it up is because
you're such a great example of of how how to
handle it, how you did handle it, how you're currently
handling it. And I think your words inspire so many
other people that that are going through the same situation.
And maybe they think there's no light at the end
of the tunnel, but people like you inspire and help
(04:25):
more people than you would ever know. Well, I mean,
you know, it's it's crazy, you know how many people
you meet at the races, and uh, you know, even
to this day, you know, I still have people come
up and say, hey, you know, sorry to hear about
your son. And you know a lot of times, I'll
be honest, you know, I don't want to hear it
if it's especially like if it's you know, maybe race
(04:45):
day and you're trying to you know, kind of get
in that zone and be ready to go racing. But
I meet so many people that say, you know, they've
had it happened to them, And the first thing I
do is give them a hug and say, hey, you're
part of a club that no parents should be a
part of. And you know, there's just like this this
bond there for people that have you know, been through
(05:06):
what we're going through, and uh, you just got to
know that that all of this has happened for a reason.
You know, we just don't know what the answer to
it is right now. And the one thing I do
know is, you know, Dalton would have been horribly upset
with me and Donna if we let that ruin our life.
You know, it affected our life, It changed the people
that we are, and it and it changes everything that
(05:28):
you do every day. But you know the best thing
you can do is is to put a positive on
it and move forward and just make sure that you're
doing all you can to help others and do what
you can to maybe help prevent you know, some parent
going through what we went through. Yeah, and uh, you
know it's interesting and I don't even know if you
guys know or not, but we sponsored Dalton and uh,
(05:51):
you know it was it was one of those things
that you know, I've I've known Clay an incredible amount
of time as well, and and uh, he was the
kid was amazing. And what Clay has said about how
the the amount of things that he did over the
amount of years that he was here is uh is
(06:13):
second to none. I mean, it's absolutely amazing. And uh
and you know he's uh he had a good teacher,
had a great guy showing him the way and uh
and and uh, Clay Milliken has always been one of
my favorites. And you know, teamed up with Doug Stringer,
which how can you not love Stringer? You know, uh
(06:34):
as as uh you know, as a team and uh
to watch the magic that they put together and to
watch the um to watch them slay the the dragons,
the big teams. You know, uh, you know it is
(06:55):
it is unbelievable to watch what they do and on
the budget that they do it. I know a lot
about it, a lot more than probably many do, just
with my relationship with these guys. But I'm I'm proud
to call call Clay a friend and have for a
long time. And uh, and yes, watching watching the way
he dealt with everything, and and uh you know him
(07:16):
and his family. Uh, you know, he was pretty much
right back out there. And you know, I think I
think what I knew of Dalton, I think that's probably
what he would have wanted you to do, right, Oh,
a hundred percent, no doubt about it. And you know
you mentioned Doug there. I know Rico, you and Doug
are are very very close and y'all are actually involved
(07:36):
together in the Jason Left for Memorial Race, which is
pretty cool, you know, one of the biggest midget races
there is in the country. And I know fat Heads
and Rico have a whole lot to do with what's
going on there. And you know, Doug and his friends
have done a wonderful job, you know, with the Jason
Left from Memorial Race and if you've not ever been
to that, that is one of those events that is
a must go too. Yeah, it's pretty wild. And uh,
(08:01):
I think Stringer is as bad as I am, or
am I as I'm as bad as he is. But
you know, the day that I met Stringer was you know,
he was he was running m I guess it was
called Bush at the time, but I guess it's Exfinity today.
But you know, he was running that and he had
the great clips car and you know, again was running
(08:22):
it on the shoe string budget, but was still getting
things done. And uh, I mean I absolutely fell in
love with the guy. Just an amazing individual. And again
he's he's another one that's got got a not quite
the smile clay he's got on his face all the time,
but he's got a hell of a smile on his
face even when you're in the in the final round
(08:46):
and man, I was pulling for you guys, buddy, how
did that feel? I'll tell you what. It was a
absolute wild weekend basically started off Friday night. I mean,
our freaking race car wouldn't even start. You know, It's like,
how does that happen? How does the race car not start,
but we're in a battle for the last spot into
(09:07):
the shootout, the call out whatever, you know, NHR is
calling that deal, and uh, you know we're trying to
stay in front of Doug Glitta and Shawn Langdon and
the car won't start, and you know, everything just kind
of like holy moly, you know what else can go wrong? Well,
what else can go wrong? We have our bottom end
guy that has has a family emergency has to leave
(09:27):
and go home. So now we're short of guy, and
we end up mixing our people up, and uh, somehow,
some way we end up in the final round, coming
up a whopping twelve doll short of you know, leaving
Phoenix with a wally. It was it was a heck
of a weekend. You know, it's it's kind of crazy.
We all we all have these racing stories of you know,
(09:48):
this was bad, that was bad, this didn't go right,
that didn't go right, and then the next thing, you know,
it turns into one of those weekends that after it's
done and over with, and it was so stressful and
so crazy that it's like, man, that was pretty cool.
You know, our supercharger guy was doing the bottom in
the driver guy was, you know, helping take the super
chargers apart, you know, and and the wind lights just
(10:11):
keep coming on, and you know, we ended up with heck,
we had basically the whole and trying Brown team over
there helping us get ready for the final, including and
Tron himself. You know. So you know, what was turned
starting out as a very rough weekend turned into a
pretty dang awesome weekend. Would have been a fantastic weekend
if we were thirteen thal better. Like I said, we
(10:31):
lost by twelve thal, So heck of a weekend. Yeah,
and and and you know, so I was we just
started our our program with the nhr A where we
provide the aerial coverage with the drone and uh, I
was all the way down at the finish line while
the old finish line, but i was down at the
end of the track, and I'm like, I'm on the
(10:51):
radio calling back up to the to the up to
the starting line, and I'm saying, what's going on with Meliken?
What's I'm I saw one car wasn't starting. I'm like,
what's going on up there? What's going on up there?
Because we're flying and we only have a certain amount
of flight time, you know. So we're setting there and
Chad radio back to me. He goes, Milliken's car won't start,
(11:14):
you know, and uh so and and I hate seeing that.
I mean, I hate seeing that for anyone, but you know,
I definitely hate seeing it for those guys, just you know,
the you know, the friendship and and and caring about
those guys as well as many others out there. But
to watch what they turn how they turned it around.
I did not know about your bottom end, guys, So
(11:36):
that's even that's even crazier. But um, to watch it
all go down, and and you said, and Tron Brown's
team jumping in, throwing down with you guys, that's really
what the NHR is about. You would never you would
never see that. I've seen it in sprint car racing.
(11:56):
I'm sure there's other places I've seen it in the
uh you know, the NHR A definitely never have seen
it in Nascar. They they may they may go over
and help flatten your tire so you don't get back out.
But but it's a it's a heck of a family
out there, and it's it's pretty amazing to watch that
all go down. Yeah, I saw they had that on
(12:20):
the broadcast where they'd mentioned that you had lost one
of your guys there and uh, and you could see
are on Brown's team mixed in there, and you know,
I immediately it was no surprise to me. I mean,
that's just the camaraderie. I think that's camaraderie really behind
the scenes of almost all racing. For the most part,
given the opportunity, what racers want to do is race
other people, and they want to race them at their best.
(12:42):
They don't want to take the cheap shot and beat
them while they're down. They want to say, I have
no excuses here, man, I want to beat you straight up.
So I know that those guys jumped in, but I
couldn't help but think, because you guys are such a
sinc up system, every one of those teams where everybody
has their own specific job and it's done a specific
way for each team, how does somebody immediately blend in,
(13:04):
even a bottom end guy that does bottom and stuff
for and Tron Brown isn't gonna do it the same
way you guys do it, So how does that work out?
I mean, do you have somebody follow up behind him
and say yeah, I think we're all good here. Do
you just let them do their thing and say we
trust you man? Well, I mean it's pretty it was
pretty fun to watch. Uh. You know, I was relieved
(13:25):
of my supercharger duties for the final rail there because
of this guy showing up, and uh, it was kind
of cool. So our car chief last year's is a
guy named Chris Newton, and he went to and Tron
Brown's team. So I think second round, I walk over
and I see Brad Mason, you know, car chief co
crew chief for Antron, and I said, can I borrow
(13:48):
Chris Newton? Because that was a natural fit. Chris Newton
was on our car last year and knew where all
the tools were, knew what the parts and pieces were,
and so he came over for second round and and uh,
you know then the next round we had maybe one
more guy that anyway, to answer your question, uh again,
(14:09):
you know, our people were kind of out of place anyway,
because we were short a guy, you know, our supercharger
guys doing the bottom in and so young Mr Matt
Sackman from from Antron's team. He was on one side
and our supercharger guy was on the other. So as
far as not doing it the same. We weren't doing
it the same anyway because we didn't have our normal
people in our normal places, and so they just made
(14:32):
it happen, you know. And and I gotta be honest,
you know, I know those guys are all pros, and
they were not going to, you know, put me in
a car that was gonna be in danger, and you know,
I ran that thing plumb past the finish line trying
to win that race. And that was just all there
is to it. But it's amazing to watch guys that
are true pros at you know, servicing nitro engines because
(14:57):
it is so very little time ESPEC actually in between
the semis and the finals. But you are right, you know,
sometimes you can get too many people in there. But
I don't know how they did it, But somehow, some way,
there wasn't even a lot of talking, even with the
extra people there. You know. I think maybe because Chris
Newton was on our car last year, he directed and
(15:18):
trwings guys as to where he thought they should be
or what they should be doing. And uh, it was
pretty seamless, to be honest with you. It certainly made
it a little easier on the on me, you know,
for stress level as to whether or not we're gonna
make it up there in time or not. You know,
I have had times where you know, I've got to
put my helmet on and put all my gear on
and get in the race car and strapped in before
(15:39):
we ever leave the pit area. And that wasn't even
the case for this final round. It was, you know,
kind of like unusually compared to first and second round.
You know, it was kind of like business as usual
thanks to you know, all the guys from over at
the Maco team. It was cool, great behind the scenes
stuff and good, good, good stuff. Man. All right, we're
gonna take a quick break here and we'll be right
(16:00):
back with more from the man that loves to wear
a smile on his days, Mr Clay Milligan. This segment
of the Skinny is brought to you by General Tire.
It's more than just a slogan. Anywhere is possible with
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(16:22):
dirt and rock covered terrain for extreme traction that's ready
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than the Grabber X three. Make you're anywhere possible by
visiting General Tire dot Com today. Welcome back to the Skinny.
We have a great friend of the show, long long
time friend, Clay Milligan, has joined us here from his
home in Tennessee. We appreciate him taking the time here
(16:45):
fresh off of back to back weekends, really a three
peet weekend if you count the testing session. But we're
gonna take a step back here and talk about how
you got going in this business, because, as I recall,
you came from a family that just had endless amounts
of cash and you don't went to dad and said,
hey man, you know, I really think I could be
a professional race car driver if you could flip me
a couple of meal to get going, and uh boom,
(17:07):
next thing, you know, Clay Milligan's racing cars. Right. Yeah, absolutely,
that's how it happened. You know, I hopped on the
private jet and flew in and the next thing you know,
you know, I'm winning championships over on the I h
R side. You know that's uh, that is certainly the
fairy tale. That is a tale, no doubt about it.
I mean, you know, I'm just I'm still to this
(17:29):
day a Brackett racer at heart. I was a sportsman racer.
I still feel that way. And uh, you know, I've
been told many many times, you know, right place, right
time kind of thing. But the truth is it was
I met a lot of great people and and it
started with a guy named Raymond King, who then eventually
connected me to a young guy named Peter Lehman. And
(17:50):
the next thing, you know, you know, I quit my
job of driving a forklift in a Kroger food warehouse
after eleven years, and here I am, for one, I've
been paying my bills driving a top fuel car. I mean,
that's my life story in a very very short span.
But yeah, I mean Brackett racer race locally that somehow,
(18:12):
some way that I wanted to do this bad badly
enough that I got the opportunity and uh took it
and run with it and had never looked back. But
I do occasionally still have dreams of being at that
warehouse driving that forklift, and I wake up in cold
sweats thinking that you should put a little model forklift
(18:33):
on the shelf there keeping keep do you remember where
you came from, where it all started? Man, keep it humble.
You've always been very humble abou getting a Kroger hat,
you know. So so when you when you did this
and you said I'm done with the Kroger bit, what
did your wife say? Well, funny enough, she just walked
into the office here and she's trying to be really quiet.
(18:56):
So the opportunity came for me to get my life
in a top fuel car, which Peter Lehman was paying for. Uh, Donna,
my wife, of how how many years we figured this up?
Be thirty seven years this year? Awesome? Encourage me. She
didn't encourage me. She told me to quit an absolute
(19:18):
saint thirty seven years of that thirty seven years. Yeah,
it's crazy. But she not only encouraged me to quit
my job at Kroger, but she basically said, you need
to quit your job at Kroger. She knew how badly
that I wanted to race four living and you know,
(19:38):
she's like, here's your chance, you know, And I said, well,
I can keep missing days. You know, eventually they will
probably fire me from missing days to go racing because
I was racing all the time on weekends and missing
one day a week and all those sort of things.
And and she's like, just do it, just quit, we'll
figure it out. You know, she had a normal job,
(20:00):
and it was not easy. I'm gonna tell the truth.
I mean, you know back then we're talking you know again,
you know, late nineties. You know, you used to get
credit cards in the mail that would come you know,
already souped up for you bucks or five grand. Believe me,
we used those to pay bills. And uh took many,
many years to get all that stuff caught up. But
(20:21):
she was the one that pushed me to just quit
my job and and figure it out. And that's that's
what we did. You know, we figured it out. But
you know, it all happened, you know, like say, good people,
and and UH had a lot of a lot of
guidance and direction from from Raymond King and Peter Lehman
and certainly a supportive wife and family that uh, you
(20:42):
know might have helped us pay some bills along the way.
So when when when you when Peter Lehman entered the
picture and and he picks up Warner Trucking as a sponsor,
and of course you made that car, so successful over
the course of your h r A tenure. There was
there a conversation right there, you know, at some point
fairly early on to Peter to say, hey, man, is
(21:04):
there any way to work work me into the budget?
I mean some sort of salary into the budget so
I can dedicate more time to this team. Is that
how that conversation goes now? Not really, to be honest.
You know, at at the moment of knowing I was
gonna get my license, uh I quit. You know, Peter
(21:27):
didn't have an intention of running a full time top
field team at that moment. You know, he he had
put together a deal with the Chicago White Sox because
it was the opening of Route sixty six race way.
He's the Chicago guy, and I mean, for all we
knew it was that one race weekend and that that
was going to be it. I mean, you know, once
(21:49):
the that was in, so I went and I quit
my job May tenth of which was when I got
my license, and also my my older sisters of days
the reason I can remember that, Uh yeah, I went
essentially two years with you know, no paycheck. You know,
we had Donna and it wasn't like she was you know,
(22:11):
making millions because she wasn't she just had a normal job.
But yeah, we gambled. I mean, we gambled on on
our ourselves, you know. And uh again, you know, a
lot of people helped and make sure that we were
able to keep the lights on. But you know, Peter, initially,
you know, it was one of those things He's like, hey,
we can do this one race. And then the following
(22:32):
year we did I don't know, three or four or
five handful of races. Uh in Nick Bonifante's car of
Bonifly clutches Nitro Nick. Everybody knows him if they're in
the business, and you know, and then uh, Peter made
the decision to buy all the equipment, and we actually
bought all the equipment from Tommy Johnson Jr. And Senior.
(22:56):
It was their family equipment. And that was in two thousand,
my first year top fuel racing. I think I made
like eighteen thousand dollars for the year, which was you know,
killed it, way more than I had made the previous
two years. So that wasn't enough for the jet fuel.
Is that what you're getting out of here? Wasn't enough
(23:17):
to pay back all those millions of borrowed. Yeah, Now,
I I knew it was a scrap from the bottom up.
And we love hearing those stories because you know, there's
a million excuses out there why I, why I can't
do it, or why I didn't do it, and then
there's always people like you that blow all that stuff
right out of the water. So, uh, just just one
(23:38):
of those scrappers that wanted it desperately bad and and
fortunately for you, I mean, I think some things did
fall in place when you stumble onto somebody like a
Peter Lehman that that really brings a few of the
important pieces of puzzle together. And then of course you
do and what you did to make it happen on
your end, it's it's just a wonderful story. Well, I mean,
you know, this is a quote straight from my mom.
(23:59):
And you got to have the want to. If you
want to do something bad enough that you're willing to
basically give up anything and everything else there is in life,
you know, you can figure it out. I mean, you know,
for me, I wanted to do it, and and luckily,
you know, Donnad was was willing to not have all
(24:20):
the nicest things, you know, house cars and shoes, and
you know, you name it. We we did without and
until we were able to figure out how to make
it pay our bills. And you know, and she continued
to work a normal job up until two thousand and eight.
And since then, you know, she's she's raised our kids,
and she's you know, traveled with me to the races
(24:43):
NonStop since then, you know, and it's it's pretty awesome.
I mean we are together, you know, twenty four hours
a day, and and uh, it's funny. You know, every
now and then she's like, go to the shop, you know,
go do something. I'm sticking you in the house or
whatever the case. Maybe you know that's just the truth
to the ma. But don't you have something to do?
(25:03):
Don't you know, somewhere to go? Right right right? Totally
get it. And a TV star as well. Man, you've
done plenty of plenty of television broadcast along the way.
You've been blessed with a with a couple of different gigs. Yes,
I mean I have, I really really have. I mean,
you know, you and I've done a lot of cool
stuff together. You know, I did the Pinks all Out
(25:26):
shows for a while. I did a couple of one
show that was on MTV two. That was a lot
of fun where we you know, took kids from University
Technical Institute and had them build cars. And you know,
I did uh a show called Drag Race High which
was with high school kids, and I really really enjoy
that and and I now seem to have kind of
(25:47):
turned that into you know, the YouTube thing. You know,
you're talking a little bit earlier about you know, behind
the scenes kind of thing, and that's that's kind of
what I've been doing with with my YouTube channel, which
is you know, a lot of fun and and it's
a high quality production, all done with this right here,
the old I phone, and but you know, lots of
(26:08):
lots of people are watching and and it's been so
much fun, you know, to be able to kind of
share everything going on. And I've been very fortunate and that,
you know, Doug Stringer, which we talked about earlier, has
you know, not said a word about, man, you can't
be in the lounge showing what what's going on with
the tune up and that sort of thing. Now, I
don't always show the screen, but if you go and
(26:29):
watch what we're doing on YouTube, you are getting a
dent behind the scenes. What's going on with our race team.
I think while we were on here, qualifying from Phoenix
just popped up on the channel and you can see
my reaction and what I said when the you know,
the freaking race car wouldn't start after Q one. You know,
it's uh, it's all there and it's fun. You know,
(26:52):
the social media thing is huge, and you know, people
like Parks plus some at Racing, which is now on
board with our team, are warning those you know, that information.
They want to be able to share that with you know,
their customers. And and luckily for me, I like talking
a lot, and I don't mind holding my phone up
and filming it and you get to see what's happening
(27:12):
and it's fun. Yeah, So tell me, and I may
know the story briefly or partially. I should say, how
did you and Stringer get hooked up? Well? So I
met Doug Stringer through Lance Larson. Lance and he go
back to the Jim Eppler Funny Car days because Doug
(27:37):
actually was a crew guy owned Jim Peppler's funny Car
and the only way that Doug was able to work
on the car was if he brought sponsorship, which is
kind of funny that Mike Blober was the chief on
that car. And so you want to work, you want
to work on this, you gotta bring money. I've never
heard that. I like, yeah, yeah, it's it's true. I mean,
(28:02):
y'all really need to get Doug on here, because he
has so many great you know, war stories of of
all the things that he's done. But Doug Stringer is
a guy that loved drag racing and he ended up
going NASCAR racing to make a living. So back to
your question, how did how did Doug and I meet?
So Lance had introduced us and and Lance said, let
(28:23):
me know, Hey, anything you see great clips? You know
the Great Clips thirty eight car. When when Doug owned
the Bush team, uh Casey Kane and and the Hendricks
Motorsports car, you know, if you saw great clips, Dug
Stringer was involved in that. So you know, I am
the guy that you know pays his bills with racing
a race car that has sponsors on it. So Doug
(28:46):
started getting lots of phone calls from a guy in Drummonds, Tennessee,
you need to take great clips drag racing, and uh man,
I chased him forever and ever and ever, and you know,
it's it's crazy how it worked out. But he finally
invited me to bring the race team to the Jason
Leftra memorial party that they have before the event. And
(29:11):
I was driving for Dexter Tunnel at the time, and
so it worked out that that race was leading into
a match race the World Series of Drag Racing at
Cordova Dougs in southern Illinois. So we took the race
car by their unloaded it, handed it on display during
his party. And that was the turning point for Doug,
he said. He said, when those rigs rolled up his
(29:32):
driveway and rolled it down his driveway, he knew he
was going back drag racing, and uh, that was kind
of how it started. But I gotta add this real quick,
and I know I'm running along here. So Doug calls
me finally and he's like, I don't I think, Uh,
I just want to be a team owner, and I
want to know if you'll drive a funny car. I said,
(29:55):
of course I will. You know, I knew that was
way better than driving a forklift, you know, So I'm like, yes,
of course I will at least, so yeah, you know,
And so we get to the point of we're kind
of talking budgets and what it takes, and I said,
you know, this whole funny car thing, I'm all in
on it. Gladly do it. It'll be a cool new
(30:17):
challenge for me. Is something different. And then we got
to discussing the cost of funny car bodies and how
many you need, and dougs like you know that dragster. Thanks,
pretty cool. Why don't we just stick with that? So
that's kind of how that happened. Yeah, great stuff. So
from driving a forklip to uh to lifting blowers if
you will from time to time. We're gonna take a
(30:39):
quick breaker and we'll be right back with more from
Clay Millick. This segment of The Skinny is brought to
you by Toyota. Once again. Welcome back to the Skinny.
We have Clay Milliken on the show with us here
today from his home in Tennessee. Ken Stout Rico Elmore
joins me here on the set and Uh, I heard you, Clay,
(31:00):
I heard you say, before I know I'm running along.
Get rid of that internal clock. As a broadcaster that's
inside of your head. You can talk as long as
you want on the show. That's why you're on the show.
We want to hear you talk, We want to hear
your side of it. Many nobody care, nobody cares what
we're talking about. I can remember being on it on
headphones in a studio with you Ken and people in
(31:23):
my ear going that's enough, wrap it up, wrap it up.
So that that kind of just happened to me from
time to time because I do get on a rambling
role and uh, I may have had kin stout before.
Tell me doing you know, like, come on, shorten it up,
wrap it up. You know that's when we're on time stuff.
Somebody needs to do that to him. So you know,
(31:43):
that's beside the point. People, you you understand all too well. Now.
Rico certainly has a much better feel for it now
as well. And this is just a really relaxed show.
But people, I think smoke. I think Tony Stewart just
got a real good introduction to it as well, being
on the on the NASCAR broadcast. But as you well know,
people have no clue how fast the pace is when
(32:04):
you're doing a TV show. It seems like they're sitting
there relaxed. They got plenty of time to talk about everything.
But the truth of the matter is, man, everything is
short and quick, and no matter what you say, you
didn't say it quick enough. Oh that's for sure. I'd
like to say I learned that. And uh man, I'm
trying to think. I don't know how many shows that
you and I did together, but it was a lot.
(32:29):
I don't even remember what studio we did that stuff
in somewhere near did we? Oh? Do we do him
in Chicago? Because I did those also down in North
Carolina For a while I was doing some some h
R stuff in North Carolina, so bounced around. Yeah. I
don't know either, but uh, you know, working together, I
know for sure for for a while there. It's it's
funny that, you know. So we were at I think
(32:53):
we were at Norwalk. Is that where you guys ran
a lot clay Norwalk? Yeah, so did I was. I
was at Norwalk. Uh, and we were riding around on
the golf cart, me and dom Logana. Okay, and he goes,
go down this way, right down here, go down this way.
I'm driving the golf cart down there. I'm like, where
where are we going? You know? And he goes, no, seriously,
(33:16):
go right down here. You can stop right here and
I stopped. He says, you see that right there He
points over. I said yeah. He said, that was Clay
Milliken's pit. He was the only guy that had a
concrete pad. The rest of us were in the dirt.
I knew where you were going because they Because Bill
Baiter being Bill Baiter, he created the thing saying, if
(33:37):
you want a concrete pad, you can pour it and
that'll be yours. And he gets gets the pits concreted
by the racers. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean that was
a pent. Peter Lehman moved right there because every every
time we showed it at Norwalk, you know, we were
making a run to the to the you know, the
(33:58):
lumber yard and buying piles of plywood because you can't
work on the top fuel car in the grass. You know,
it's it's hard to do. And so Peter called Bill Sr.
And said, you know, hey, I want to pave my spot.
And he's like, you are not paving anything on my brass,
you know, Bill Senior, Bill Jr. Same way. They love
their grass there at Norwalk, and he's like, not happening.
(34:21):
But you can pour a spot of concrete. You can
do that. And something that will laugh forever. Yeah, yeah,
he hung up on him, called the concrete company right away.
And and so yes, for many many years we had
the only concrete spot. And I go and visit that
every year every year myself. It's pretty cool to hear
Dom took you over there to show you that, because
(34:43):
I still go visit it too, because we want a
lot of races off of that concrete spot right there,
and and and that's exactly what he said. I mean,
that was where he was going with it. He was
like Clay Milk and wore people out off of that
concrete pad right there, and he was It was just
so cool to hear the story. And then uh, and
I of course, you know, seeing you out at the
(35:05):
track and completely space it. But I just thought that
was so cool that you know that that was that
was what he was he was wanting to go look at.
So let's talk a little bit about those uh those
magical I h R A years and two thousand you
finally go full time racing two thousand one, Boy, you
unleased on everybody. Six top Fuel championships from O one
(35:28):
to two thousand six, uh fifty two national event wins,
sixty appearances in top Fuel and final round over the
course of those times, nobody's surpassed that. By the way,
these records will never be be broken because of and
in large part because of rule changes and and just
what has happened over the course of time. But uh,
(35:48):
uh unbelievable. You want sixty of all the races entered
from two thousand one to two thousand six, the only
driver to advanced to every final round in a single season,
the most consecutive Top Fuel event wins at ten, the
most consecutive round wins, and all of top fuel racing
with thirty consecutive wins. That's unbelievable. And the most wins
(36:12):
in a season with eleven. I mean, the list goes
on and on and on. You'll you'll retire the h
r A world record and top fuel the laps time
of four uh three eight miles an hour, that's quarter mile,
so we know that one won't be broken. What you
guys did over there, uh nothing short of exceptional, my friend.
I mean, you just continued to pound on those guys.
(36:35):
You know that's stuff. It don't even make sense. Yeah,
you know, our bracket raced and and you know Sportsman
raced enough to know that that kind of stuff is
really really not supposed to happen. You know, what we
did was certainly it was just a magical run, right people,
right right everything, you know, and the rules fit our combination.
(36:58):
You know. The HR rules were pretty stiff, you know,
and that you can only run the supercharger at over.
You know, it was just I don't know, we had
a magical combination. And and the truth is we were
highly disappointed if we did not win the race, which
is crazy to believe. And I gotta tell this right quick.
(37:19):
So two of the guys that worked on that Werner car,
one of them is named Justin Crossland. He worked with
me for eleven years. We hired him right out of
high school. Another guy named Chris Martin came from the
same little town in Winnatchi, Washington. He worked with me
for ten years, justin Crossland. When he started, he worked
(37:43):
for two full race seasons as this fresh out of
high school kid that we never went to the race
track with him for two years that we didn't go
to the final. Now I'm not saying we wont every
one of them, but for two years straight, every race
he went to, we went to the final. Ruined that guy. Well,
(38:10):
well he's this, this is this story gets better with
these two. So when kind of my time came to
an end with the team being based here in in
my little area of near Drummonds, Tennessee, those two guys
went to work for somebody y'all may have heard of.
That's one a few races in the last few years
(38:32):
named Steve Torrens. So think about what those two guys
have done. They went from what we did essentially all
almost all of my HR stuff and rolled right over
to Steve torres. So their winning record has got to
be ridiculous. I mean it's got to be up there
with the best of the best. You know, if you
(38:55):
combine what they did on the Werner car and what
they're doing, you know with the CapCo car right now,
I mean that's pretty crazy. But ken back to those
numbers and stuff. I hear that stuff every now and
then and it's just, you know, it certainly makes me smile,
but you know it, Uh, it's it's pretty cool. I
have to tell the truth. You know, I've got thirty
(39:18):
six of those trophies are in my living room just
because when we built this house that I live in,
I had maybe a handful of them. And my best
friend is who built my house, and we measured one
of the iron Men and he built this massive cabinet
that my TV is in. And I never thought ever
(39:42):
that that cabinet would not hold all of them. You know,
that's just hard to believe. And and I'm kind of
embarrassed to say that the you know, the World Championship
trophies are actually they're wrapped in plastic, but they're they're
above me in the attic right now, because, uh, we
run out of room. Him. We built a cabinet that
would hold thirty six iron man in and we overflowed it.
(40:03):
So that's a good problem. I got a question for you.
I'm gonna ask you something here because I lived this
experience and I'm curious if if you've ever felt the
same way. So over a course of a couple of years,
my son had some great some great success, and I
think it was two thousand and ten, he he became
the youngest champion in the Perili World Challenge Series at
(40:25):
the time, I think it was was twenty five or
twenty eight years old. So he just had an incredible
run that season. It was his rookie year, most laps led,
most cars passed, we won races where like you said before,
you just did things that that we know now in
racing just typically do not happen. I mean, somebody blew
(40:46):
the end of the end of the straightaway, blew the turn,
hit him so hard they shot up over the top
of the car, landing on top of the car, knocked
him off the track, and he came back and somehow
still manage a podium, you know, at the end of
the race. So it was just those types of one
of those reasons that that went magical, and and we
had a couple of those years, and it got to
the point where we're looking at it and I'm thinking
(41:08):
to myself, you know, this is just too easy. I mean,
we need to get up where there's more competition or
something needs to change here, because this isn't how racing,
is it. It doesn't happen like this. This is just
too easy. And then all of a sudden you get
one of those years where the slightest little touch from
a car cuts a tire down and you're out in
(41:29):
the first two laps of the race and boom it
just it's snowballs. The other way, and you're like, you've
got to be kidding me. Man, We're better than this.
I know we're better than this. So the question here is,
was there ever a time in your career where you
thought yourself, Man, this is this is just too easy.
We need to change our game. And it's just because
the racing gods have decided to smile on you and
(41:51):
things are coming really easy. But it is never easy.
And boy, I'll tell you that that coin can flip
the other way in a second. Oh, no question about
it again. You know, for me, I knew I had,
you know, gotten my my butt kicked enough times sportsman racing,
and you know, so I knew what we were doing
was magical and and I'm gonna kind of turn this
(42:14):
into a little bit of something a little different, you know,
because people, you know, even now still ask me, it's like, man,
you were so dominant in h R, how come you
can't do that in NHR. Well, if you go back
and look during I don't know, just pick a year, oh,
four oh five, whatever, when we were crushing everything in
the HR, we were doing you know, a handful of
(42:36):
racist on the NHR side of things, while handicapping ourselves
with the over on the supercharger because our job was
racing the h R. Weren't er paid us to racing
the h R. So we would go do the NHR
races and kind of look at that as testing. But
we went to three consecutive final rounds one year on
(43:00):
the NHR A side of things. Now, they were three
runner ups, but we were, you know, kind of giving
ourselves that challenge of hand one, handicapping ourselves at over
on the supercharger and to racing you know, the larger
series and still going over there and going around. So,
I mean, there was I can't even remember we raced
(43:21):
Kenny Bernstein in one final and I can now tell
this story and I haven't. I really honestly haven't shared
this a whole lot. But why not. Y'all are friends,
you know, it's just us watching this, right wink wink?
You know. Uh. The truth of the matter is, and
I'm not saying we did this because we did it,
(43:43):
but we had instructions straight from Mr Greg Warner, president
of Warner Enterprises, to never ever, ever, under any circumstances,
beat the Budweiser car. Uh. Warner Enterprises did about how
a billion dollars a year of business. I just getting
(44:05):
ready to ask that's why it was, Yeah, about a
half a billion a year in business. Yeah. We did
race the Budweiser car in the final. We did not
own purpose, smoked the tires and that's the truth. We
did not h We got beat by the Budweiser car.
I think that was Houston. The following race was Bristol.
(44:27):
UH lost to the Army car in the final round,
which at that point a lot of people were losing
to that. Alan Johnson tuned Army car. We smoked the
tires and blew up, and Tony smoked the tires and
blew up a little further down the racetrack, and we did.
And then we raced Corey Mack in the final in Atlanta.
So that was, you know, three runner ups that we
(44:49):
had while our job was racing the h R side
of things. So you know, but what we did and
what was going on in that that time frame, you know,
was certainly certainly certainly unbelievable time and much appreciated. And
I probably don't you know, think about that often enough
to uh to appreciate it, and I know I will
(45:10):
one of these days. I don't have any intentions equipment
anytime soon. But but those trophies that I was talking
about upstairs, one of these days they'll come. They'll come
down and get unwrapped out of the plastic, and uh,
I'll kick back and and wait on people to stop
by the house and tell stories about them. I'm sure.
I mean, you've got what about another forty years? Chris
caramel se and he just shut her down like ninety,
(45:33):
didn't he? So you should be good. Yeah, I don't
have any intentions equipment anytime soon. And the truth is,
I'm you know, I'm having as much fun as I've
ever had doing this. Uh. A few years ago I
got on a health kick. I'm probably at fifty six
years old, I am probably now healthier than that I've
(45:54):
ever been. And that's being truthful. Uh. I mean just
yesterday you can go check out on the Instagram and Facebook.
I was, I don't know, up a tree with a
chainsaw cutting limbs out from ice storm at fifty six
years old, and and of course I got hammered on
on the comments about doing that. But I don't feel old,
(46:15):
and I don't intend my bat feels old. Let me
say that. But Yeah, I feel good driving the race
car right now. I'm having a whole lot of fun
and and now I feel like, you know, I've done
it for long enough that that I can roll with
the punches probably a little easier, you know. The highs
and lows are not so dramatic anymore as they once were,
you know, And uh, I just I love it. Awesome stuff. Man, Well,
(46:40):
we wish you the best of luck. Man. You've given
us some great races over the course of your career,
of course, and watching you scrap from the bottom and
not only make it, but be very very successful at it.
Stepping up the run with the competitors nhr A doesn't
come any more difficult than that, and certainly have proven
your worth out to it to be in in that
(47:01):
league where the rest of those guys fresh off that
final round there just a few days ago at Phoenix,
and uh, certainly a worthy title contender. Man. We wish
you the absolute best of course going forward here in
two And thanks for taking the time, my friend. Well,
I absolutely appreciate. I was honored that y'all asked me
to be a part of the show. And and uh,
(47:23):
it doesn't get any better than sitting down with you
two to tell war stories. And in this case, you know,
we're doing it for the world to see, and that
there's a lot of stories that get told that you
know what, maybe want some food drive and we'll tell
some more of those. We look forward to that as well. Man. Uh,
we'll all have plenty to tell once we don't have
(47:44):
to worry about being politically correct. Yeah, and thank you
for supporting our product with fath Heads. It's been a long,
long relationship and uh, it means a lot to me.
You were you were one of the few that was
there early and still here today, so it means a
lot to us for sure. Absolutely. I mean that's uh,
that's one of those relationships that that started with Dalton
(48:07):
with wearing the fat Heads goggles in his motocross career,
and and me and you have been buddies for many
many years. Same as as kin there, that's for sure.
The only thing that that that we don't have is
that silky smooth kin stout voice. We just don't have that, Rico.
But we just don't have that, I know. It's so
(48:28):
it's so Ricco's got some pipes on him. Man, Let's
listen to we can talk offline about a restaurant incident
with he and I and maybe a few too many
UH beverages. We told him, We warned them, but they
didn't listen. Pretty soon they pulled the curtain clearly. Nice shade,
bro Blay Millikan, Uh once again, thanks a lot, my friend.
(48:54):
It's It's been a great time and best of luck
the rest of the year. Guys, thank you so much.
Appreciate to let me come up. Thanks for being with
us here on the Skinny. This episode has been brought
to you by say Yota and General Tires for the
latest and sunglasses, optical frames, accessories and apparel. Be sure
(49:14):
to check out batheads dot com bats fat Heads with
a Z. Production facilities provided by fat Heads I Wear Studios.
(49:40):
All rights reserved. The Skinny with Rico and Kenna is
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, form
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