Clay Millican’s rise to drag racing’s top tier can be likened to a real-life Hunger Games (without the killing people part, obviously). In the movie, kids from 12 different districts in the country are pitted against each other in a televised fight for survival. Some kids are rich; some are poor; some receive training, while some do not. But once the game begins, the kids must rely on their training, intuition, and will to live, in order to survive. Of course, the deck is stacked against the poor underdog kid who overcomes all the obstacles, winning the nation’s hearts in the process.
Clay Millican was that kid. In a time when it requires a truckload of money to enter a car in a National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) event, Clay managed to find his way to get to the top on a shoestring and stay there. He wasn’t born into it and wasn’t an overnight success story. Instead, he earned it. Clay’s refusal to give up is what got him there, but his tenacity, personality, and driving ability are what keeps him there.
If you want something more than almost breathing, you’ll figure it out. Somehow someway, you can figure it out.”
NHRA Top Fuel Dragster Driver Clay Millican
The Want-To
Clay was born, raised, and still lives in Drummonds, Tennessee, a small community with two stop signs on the Mississippi River about 40 miles north of Memphis. His parents used to run the general store on the corner. He wasn’t dirt-poor, but his family certainly didn’t have a butler. What Clay had was a boatload of desire. He caught the racing bug from his father, who used to race but never really worked on cars.
“I don’t know if it’s hard-headedness, persistence, or whatever it is,” Clay says. “But, when people ask me how I got here, I tell them a line my momma used to say. She’d say, ‘you gotta have the want-to.’ And, I’ve always had the want-to. I wanted to do this, basically, more than anything. If you want something more than almost breathing, you’ll figure it out. Somehow someway, you can figure it out.”
Clay’s first car was actually a truck, long before he was legally allowed to drive. Living out in the country and working at the family grocery, he would make deliveries in his dad’s 1963 Dodge pickup n his early teens. His first legal car was a wrecked ’69 Charger parked at the grocery store for sale.
Boy Meets Drag Strip
Clay’s first trip down the strip in the Charger was 90 miles away from home at Jackson Dragway in Jackson, Tennessee. He recalls being a bit overanxious about his car’s abilities. “We pulled in, and they asked what class we wanted to run. We asked, ‘what’s the fastest class?’ They said, ‘Super Pro.’ So, we said, ‘ok, that one.’ Well, there’s this little thing called a time slip, and I was quickly back at the booth asking if I could change classes. That is where it all started.”
He was immediately hooked, and it wasn’t long until he bought a junkyard ’70 Barracuda to race, then it was on to a Duster. If you see a trend, yes, Clay is a Mopar fanatic. Even his first rear-engine dragster, bought from another local drag racer, was Mopar-powered. That dragster converted him from the door cars, and he’s been in one ever since.
Clay spent his days working at the regional Kroger warehouse as a forklift driver and his nights and weekends as a drag racer. He was fully entrenched in bracket racing, with some good regional wins under his belt. When he started getting in trouble at work for missing so many Fridays going to out-of-town races, he knew he needed to make a change to get to the next level. The problem was that he had plenty of “want-to” without the “know-how,” so he set out asking questions and making connections.
Getting The Big Break
On a trip to get a torque converter at TCI in Ashland, Mississippi, he met the vice president of TCI, Raymond King. Raymond took Clay under his wing, showed him the ropes, and helped him along the way. TCI didn’t outright sponsor any racers, but Raymond gave him the opportunity to help TCI by taking their displays to the races and bringing back transmission and torque converter cores. The symbiotic relationship paid for Millican’s gas to get to and from the races.
At the time, TCI was owned by Fel-Pro. Raymond invited Clay to display his Sportsman dragster at the company picnic, where he met many people. Toward the end of that season, Raymond called Clay with a proposition to allow a Northwestern University college kid to ride with him to the next race and do a story for his writing class on what it takes for Clay to go racing. That young man just so happened to be Peter Lehman, the son of the owner of Fel-Pro. As fate would have it, Clay won his first IHRA race that weekend, and the two guys from very different upbringings became legitimate friends.
After that win, Lehman was hooked. He worked a deal that gave Clay his big break. Lehman had connections with the Chicago White Sox and brokered an agreement to have them sponsor a Top Fuel Dragster at the opening of the Route 66 drag strip in Joliet, Illinois. That meant Clay had to get his T/F license. On May 10, 1998, Clay earned his professional license and got to drive his first Top Fuel car that weekend.
Going Full-Time
He was still working at Kroger, and the pressure was on for missing so many days to race. Clay’s wife, Donna, gave him the nudge just to quit and give it a go at full-time racing. For two years, she became the sole breadwinner while he was living off credit cards Sportsman racing. Meanwhile, Lehman went out and bought all the equipment to go Top Fuel racing. It was in 2000 that Clay became an official full-time T/F racer making $18,000 a year.
Lehman was eventually able to acquire sponsorship from trucking giant Werner Enterprises. It was a match made in heaven. Clay went on to win five IHRA championships with crew chief Mike Kloeber before Lehman went on to other interests in 2005 and sold the team to Kenny Koretsky.
After winning his sixth championship in 2006, Werner had to pull its sponsorship due to rising gas prices. Koretsky had just bought the Nitro Fish Racing Apparel Company and moved the team to NHRA for the 2007 season. When the recession hit hard in 2008, Clay had to fight to stay in the race. Some sponsors stayed on, but he struggled to get a big financial backer to foot the bill.
The Fight To Stay In The Race
Sponsorship was hard to come by, and the ground was still shaky over the next few years as the team changed owners several times. Millican was able to run a partial schedule from 2008 to 2011. In 2011, Millican was able to secure a major sponsorship from Parts Plus, and it has been with him ever since. Though he was able to return to full-time in 2012, the ownership merry-go-round continued.
Clay was trying to work a deal with Doug Stringer to get Great Clips as a sponsor in 2014 for the 2015 season when he again lost an owner. Stringer, who owned a NASCAR team, decided to field the team himself. Stringer and Millican formed a terrific partnership with David Grubnic as the crew chief. “Grubby” had the car flying, setting two national ET records and three national event wins. They were making great strides for a single-car team competing against giant multi-car, multi-million dollar budgets.
Having a solid foundation for a few years allowed the team to finish Sixth in points in 2017 with optimism for the 2018 season. Unexpectedly, Grubnic and the entire crew left before the 2018 season, prompting a reunion with Millican’s old IHRA crew chief, Mike Kloeber. With a new crew hurriedly put in place, the Parts Plus dragster improved despite the odds. They lead the points for a number of races and ended up finishing Third, Millican’s highest NHRA finish to date.
The team stayed together for the 2019-2021 seasons and continued to make strides but lacked consistency — often the product of not having enough data to determine the proper setup for a given track. Halfway through the 2022 season, the decision was made to change crew chiefs, and Jim Oberhofer was called on to take the helm. With just one race left, Millican sits in 10th position in the standings.
A Bright Future
The latest news for Millican was the announcement in September that Rick Ware Racing (RWR) had purchased the team from Stringer. With deeper pockets, the operation is open to greater possibilities. In the highly competitive world of NHRA Top Fuel racing, cash flow is king. Knowing that you have enough money for equipment means you can push the boundaries beyond its capabilities without worrying if you can make the next race.
Clay is excited about the future. He’s always known for his big smile, but it seems bigger than ever. At 56 years old, he now has the best opportunity to win an NHRA championship. With the backing of RWR and the return of Mike Kloeber to help Oberhofer lead the team, there is every reason for Clay to be excited about the coming years.
COMP Cams has supplied the hometown hero with the cams for his race cars since the beginning and recently commemorated the relationship with a primary sponsorship this weekend at the NHRA Nevada Nationals in Las Vegas. The car can be seen during the SEMA Show in the PRI booth, while Millican will appear in the Edelbrock Group booth to mingle with fans. If there is one thing that can be said about Clay, he never forgets where he came from and never gives up. That is what makes him a champion in our book!
