Darren “The Thriller”
Miller Black Flagged In “Colossal 100” After Charging From 26th
to 2nd
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
April 24, 2006, 2006
(CHADWICK, IL) -
Darren Miller advanced from his 26th place starting
position to 2nd Saturday
night in the “Colossal 100” main event before being sidelined with a
flat right rear tire. Miller
who left the track to replace the tire was black flagged for causing the
yellow and not allowed to return to the race, although several cars
causing cautions earlier in the event were not similarly penalized.
Miller qualified for the “A” main after he was able to advance from
8th to 4th
in the re-scheduled tenth heat race on a very wet and ill-prepared
track. Miller then was placed 10th in the second B-main
as a result of his heat race finish and charged to a 2nd
place finish, which then placed him in the 26th starting
position on the A-Main grid.
“This whole weekend was a
disaster” stated Miller from his shop in Chadwick, IL. “To begin
with, the group qualifying was a complete screw-up.
There’s no way you can qualify ten cars on a track at once and
expect anybody to get a good lap. But
beyond that, there was a problem with the timing transponders; one car
who had a flat tire at the beginning of a qualifying session that
didn’t even make a hot lap was scored a time and placed on the pole of
a heat race! Heck, it makes
you wonder if anybody’s times were right.”
Miller continued saying, “But
what really upsets me the most was the black flag.
We raced our heat race on a track that was nowhere near ready to
race on, qualified through the B-main, and started the feature 26th. My car was really good in the feature and we were able to
move up through the field pretty good.
There were a half dozen or more early cautions with cars leaving
and returning to the track constantly.
After I moved into second I was studying Scott and getting ready
to apply some pressure when a lapped car turned into me and cut the
right rear tire down. Before
my car had even stopped on the track the officials are on the raceceiver
screaming at me that I’m black flagged and not to return to the
track. We changed the right
rear tire and were ready to go before the caution ended, we didn’t
hold up the show, but they wouldn’t let us return to the track.”
You know I’m upset because it
cost us a lot of money” said Miller. “I race full-time, this is my
job. We have good product
sponsors and people who support us, but I basically race out of my own
pocket. Call me old
fashioned but I believe racing is all about performance.
You work hard, study, learn and improve your skills.
The best car/driver combination should win.
But I tell you, lately, I’m really concerned about the
direction our sport is headed in. There
are too many outside influences that a team has no control over.
Poor or no track prep, inverts, pill draws and other publicity
stunts to entice fans are hurting the sport.
I don’t know of any other form of auto racing where you’re
penalized for being fast. NASCAR,
Indy car, F1, drag racing, road racing don’t do it.
It’s just a become a crutch.
I mean look, Saturday night 14 of the 36 fastest qualifiers were
not in the race. If the promoters would simply do the work and prepare a good
race-able track, pay a fair purse, run a smooth show and treat the
racers and fans with respect, you wouldn’t need all these gimmicks.
The fan would see a good show with plenty of action. We race
eighty to ninety times a year at tracks all over the country and run as
many different formats as anyone out there.
We see straight up, passing points, pill draws, whatever.
If you ask me, if you have to use some kind of inversion, and I
don’t think you do, the
Knoxville, IA system is probably the fairest.
At least you get some credit for your qualifying performance.
The competition is being watered down in the name of
entertainment. It’s
gotten so bad that we had a car capable of winning Saturday night, and
we weren’t allowed to race. Could you imagine that at a show held
across the street (Lowes), Jeff Gordon cuts down a tire, pulls into the
pits to change it, and is black flagged and not allowed to return to the
race. How could it possibly have helped our show by keeping a car out of
the race that had already come from the back of the field to 2nd
and was capable of doing it again?.
I can’t imagine any fan who would not have been happy to have
watched us try.”
Darren
and the 32D team will be racing next at the Knoxville Raceway WDRL race
Friday, April 29th. For
more information about this event see www.worldraceleague.com/
For additional Darren Miller team results, news, photos and more,
check the Darren Miller Racing website at www.darrenmillerracing.com.
Media Contact: Craig Dusing
Darren Miller Racing
32d-pr@darrenmillerracing.net
