Persistence, above all, keeps the Bill Miller Engineering/Okuma/Red Line Oil Top Fuel Dragster Team competing in the National Hot Rod Association's Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.

Calvin Coolidge, 30th U.S. President, was famous for his views on the subject: "Nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not–nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not–unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not–the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

A rarity in a motorsport where teams with two or three racecars, a dozen spare engines, three tractor trailers, scores of full-time crew members and millions of dollars in sponsorship are the norm, Bill Miller is the last true independent in Top Fuel drag racing. He races 15 Full Throttle Drag Racing Series events each year, mostly out of his pocket with the rest made-up by machine tool manufacturer, Okuma America; premium lubricant maker, Red Line Oil along with Autolite Spark Plugs, Sandvik Coromont and Infinity Rebuild. Miller's Top Fuel operation is a single car, a highly-motivated crew of three full-time and seven part-time members and a budget dwarfed by those of the National Hot Rod Association's nitro class stars.

Why does Bill Miller race a Top Fuel Dragster? He and his Team are consumed by the engineering challenges of racing supercharged, nitromethane-burning dragsters. Each crew member craves the competition and excitement of NHRA's top class. Miller, also, views racing as a team-building experience for his employees, several of whom are on the BME crew. Last, but certainly not least, Bill Miller Engineering uses its dragster to develop, test and promote its products: BME Forged Aluminum Racing Pistons, BME Wrist Pins, BME Forged Aluminum Connecting Rods and the Gibson/Miller Mark II Supercharger.

"Just recently," Bill Miller said in an Spring-2009 interview, "we went in production with the Mark II version of the blower. The changes we made to it were directly a result of what we've learned racing the car in the last few years. Then, we used the car, mostly last season, to validate the new design. Several years ago, we changed the connecting rod and that, too, was a direct result of racing the car. The durability of our rods is about three times more than the previous design. That makes a big difference to racers who use the BME Rod. We continually upgrade the pistons and the pins, as well. And, it's not only just racing the car. Because we're at the track and talk with guys who run my parts, we get continuous feedback about things to improve.

In 2004, Miller debuted a new car which played a key part in the Team's best ever performance in the '06 season and saw the start of a two-year run for '03 Top Alcohol Champion, Alan Bradshaw, as BME's driver. The Team ran 13 events, set best-ever e.t. and speed, 4.545/326.32 mph, and finished 15th in points. The high-point came at Chicago in June. Bradshaw qualified the BME car 16th. He beat No. 1 qualifier and World Champion, Tony Shumacher, in the first round and took out J.R. Todd in the second before losing to Melanie Troxel in the semis. Of T/F teams running partial schedules, Bill Miller Engineering finished best behind 14 full-time, touring pros. "2006 was a very good year," Owner/Crew Chief Miller told BME Blogger, Rick Voegelin. "Finishing 15th in the Championship after competing in less than 60 percent of the races was quite an accomplishment. It's a testament to what can be done by an enthusiastic and talented team of volunteers who put their hearts and souls into Top Fuel racing." For more on '06, see the BME Blog.

The only thing keeping the front wheels on the ground is the aerodynamics of the front wing. Yeah, there's a drag penalty later in the run, but that won't negate the wing's benefit early in the run. A Top Fuel pass is 4.5 seconds. To half-track, is 3.1 of those seconds. That's 70% of the e.t. spent in the first half of the race track. Once you get past 150-175 miles an hour, you can't react fast enough. That happens at about 250 feet, so the car has to be going straight prior to that. Anticipating this problem, in the off-season, we changed the front bodywork to a full-width front wing rather than the two canards we had before. That extra downforce will keep the front wheels on the track."

Nine months later, failure of a heat-treated chassis possibly killed Eric Medlin and, then, six months after that, another failure may have almost killed John Force. Those tragic events made the heat-treated vs Condition N tubing controversy a high-profile issue throughout drag racing. Bill Miller Engineering and the BME Top Fuel Team were instrumental in scientific research done to prove the detrimental effects of using heat-treated tubing in a race car chassis. While the story in the January Drag Racer was not investigative, an article by drag racing journalist, Jon Asher, posted in October of '07 on Competitionplus.com and in January of '08 on this web site, was investigative and is the truth about Top Fuel and Funny Car Chassis Failures. Please click here to read this BME Special Report.

2008 was a huge turnaround for BME. Bill Miller, true to his tradition of hiring successful blown alcohol drivers, signed former TAD racer and second generation dragster driver, Troy Buff, to drive the famed, black-and-yellow, BME/Okuma/Red Line Oil racecar. Buff, who, in '06, put down the quickest and fastest T/F licensing pass in NHRA history, then spent a year at the wheel of the Coghlan Motorsports fueler, brings three things to BME. First, he weighs less. The rule of thumb in Top Fuel is: each 15 lbs out of the car is a hundredth off the e.t. In a class were wins can depend on a thousandth of a second, 20 pounds less in the driver seat is huge. Second, Troy Buff already is Top Fuel savvy, having driven for the Coghlans. Lastly, a dragster gearhead since childhood, Buff is a perfect addition to a team where everyone, even the driver, works on the car.

Troy Buff in the BME Dragster rockets off the Pomona starting line on its third qualifying pass at the '08 Winternationals. At left center, wearing his trademark, yellow ball cap and holding his radio headset so it won't get blown off, Bill Miller, intently watches. Image: BME Ltd.

Troy Buff heats the tires on BME's only qualifying pass at the rain-plagued, 2009 Winternationals. If the bad weather wasn't enough, at the end of the burnout, a driveline failure ended the BME Team's weekend.  It was a tough break and a somber beginning to the '09 Full Throttle Drag Racing season. The good news is the rest of the year can only get better. Image: BME, Ltd.