photo by Jeff Burk

"SLAMMIN' SAM" HITS THE EXIT

Like most of you, I was not surprised, although certainly bummed, when I heard that the quickest and fastest drag racer in history, "Slammin' Sammy" Miller, had been killed early this month. Miller's speed of light existence almost demanded a death not by natural causes. There are certain people you know will never end up in a dreary hospital, spectral gray and frail with a freeway interchange of plastic tubing going in and out of their bodies. Miller's life demanded an explosive finish and that's what happened.

As you've seen in our "Agent 1320" section, Miller was killed in an oilfield explosion in Crane, Texas. He was one of nine people involved in the blast and it just so happened that it was his ticket that was punched. So many times, Miller had dodged the bullet with his three- second, 300-mph runs, that the odds had to go against him sooner or later, and this early November proved to be sooner.

Slammin' Sammy in Tony Fox's "Pollution Packer" at Irwin Dale Raceway.
(DRO file photo)

However long drag racing lasts, there will never be anyone quite like him. Now, you can say that about anybody, but Miller is a special case. I can say without fear of contradiction that his records on a quarter- mile dragstrip will never be broken, not in my lifetime, your kids' lifetime or anybody's. Why? He set records that no one wanted to set.

A mere glance at his performances reinforces this. I think I did the last interview and feature on Miller in DRO, and was amazed at what he accomplished. He has the only 1-second drag strip e.t. at a Norway eighth-mile track. He also has the only 2-second e.t., and ran the first three-second runs. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of my InnerView with Miller where he listed for me all the records he set. I remember as I read them that this is way too fast for anyone to be going.

When I had heard that he died, I went out to my garage and leafed through my scrambled and sloppy archives, eventually finding an old copy of the British Drag Racing Association's Drag Racing News paper, and it so happened that a Miller performance was featured in it. The reporter stated that Miller was going to try and run the first three second run outside of the USA with his "Oxygen" rocket dragster during the July-based 1982 Santa Pod (England) Cannonball Run. 1982? That's 20 years ago and here's this guy going for threes!

Miller had run a 3.74 with the dragster in the States, and he wanted to bring off that feat in Europe. His first run that day was a 4.46 at 268 mph, a sort of get-acquainted run. An hour or so later, Miller shot down the Santa Pod track to an ungodly 4.06 at 284 mph, setting the stage for what we now know was the inevitable "three." On the last pass of the Cannonball meet, the boisterous British crowd watched Miller disappear down track to a 3.81 at 331 mph.

He did this for the decade of the 1980s, all of it in Europe. One of my great disappointments in life was that I never saw his dragster run. The big reason for this was that rocket dragsters failed the insurance tests in the U.S., and it literally put the tiny handful of performers like Miller on the run. Sam Miller may have been the most famous American drag racer never to have performed at his best in his native land. If anyone qualified as drag racing's quickest and fastest outlaw competitor it was Miller.

The Wayne, N.J. racer actually did drive conventional drag race cars. At the inaugural 1971 NHRA Le Grandnational-Molson in Montreal, Canada, Miller snatched the Funny Car title over a mid-level eight-car field. He had gotten into Funny Car that year when he bought Don Prudhomme's first Hot Wheels Plymouth Barracuda. I remember after seeing him fail to qualify it at that year's NHRA Winternationals, thinking that here is another one of the faceless guys who will be gone in a couple of years. Nothing about his performances that day indicated what lay ahead.

But to be metaphorically lazy, all of that changed quickly. Aside from the Molson win, Miller's limited budget put him in cars that on occasion would blow up and burn to the ground and so he figured he needed a cheaper and safer way to go fast. He went rocket racing. Go figure.

That kind of move reminds me of what former heavyweight contender and bar-fighter supreme Randall "Tex" Cobb said on why he turned pro. "Hell, I got bloodied up and lost my first three amateur fights. I figured if I'm going to do this, I might as well get paid."

Sammyís like will not return. As I said earlier, I don't think anyone really wants to go 220 yards in a little over a second. It's a weird and rare chromosome that would make anyone want to go that fast. He will remain as the sport's greatest rocket racer. Also, said sport, with its straightened tie and starched collar, sees little profit for what I'm sure most officials would say is a freak show. But hey, wasn't that what drag racing was in its beginnings -- guys bending backyard pipe, stuffing in a blown, iron, nitro burning Chrysler, wearing a leather jacket for protection, and going 180 mph. Not a lot of clerks interested in that kind of self-flagellation. Freak show? I'd say pioneering spirit.

With the passing of Sammy Miller, one of drag racing's most amazing pioneers has hit the exit.

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