The engine is four inches farther forward. That moved the center-of-mass forward, putting more weight on the front wheels. The old car had an annoying habit of lifting the front wheels in the early part of the run. While that tendency was mitigated by changing the front wing in '08, the car still was pulling the wheels right at the hit. Moving the engine forward put even more weight on the nose and allowed Miller to use a more aggressive clutch set-up just as the car leaves the starting line.

The last key improvement was a revision of cockpit packaging. The seating and placement of pedals were optimized for Troy Buff. The steering wheel was lowered to improve his vision. Various controls were either repositioned or had their ergonomics improved.

BME #01 was part of why the Bill Miller Engineering Top Fuel team returned to "best partial schedule performer" status in 2010. The Team qualified for 12 of 14 events and enabled Troy Buff to get into a second round three times, at Pomona, Phoenix and Bristol. The Team finished the year in 12th place behind 11 other teams which ran a full schedule. 2010 marked the third time in five years Bill Miller Engineering was the class of partial-schedule, Top Fuel independents.

For the BME Team, 2011 to 2015 was period of mixed results. The best of the not-so-good was 2014. While the Team finished 17th in points and was third among the partial schedule Top Fuelers, twice Troy Buff drove the BME Dragster into the semifinal round. The rest of that five years was not near as successful and, late in the '15 season, Bill Miller concluded that the best way out of the doldrums was to construct another new chassis. Work began on BME #02 that Fall.

BME's second in-house Top Fuel chassis built on the key features of the first. The car aft of the driver was pretty much the same, but up front, Bill Miler and ace fabricator Tobin, made more changes. First the footbox was shortened another six inches to further increase the length of the car where chassis flex occurs. Also the driver was repositioned about half an inch lower in the chassis so that the upper parts of the roll cage could be made lower. This was a move to reduce drag by decreasing frontal area. BME #02 debuted at the Phoenix test session prior to the 2016 Winternationals. Two weeks later, at the Winters, in the first round, Buff lost by two feet to Richie Crampton. At Phoenix two weeks later, the BME car smoked the tires in the first round. For the Bill Miller Engineering Top Fuel Team, the third event with chassis #02 at Las Vegas on 3 April 2016, was historic--the first time in 35 years of T/F racing that the Bill Miller Engineering Team went to the Final Round at an NHRA National Event.

In Q3 at the Spring Nationals in Houston, Troy Buff blows Richie Campton into the weeds as the Lucas Oil car goes up in smoke. The BME Dragster went 3.87/308.78 to Crampton's 10.31/83.21. Image: Auto Imagery.

Troy Buff qualified the BME Dragster 12th. In the first round, once again, Buff was up against Crampton and it ended in a pedalfest. Richie was up in smoke at the hit, pedaled it, then smoked the tires again. Troy ran the BME car hard to half-track, then spun the tires. He pedaled it, hooked, again, near the finish line and went 4.967/191.97 to Crampton's loosing 7.447/103.83. In the second round, the BME car faced-off with Brittany Force's Monster Energy Dragster. Apparently Brittany was  snoozing a bit on the line, so Troy left on her by .08 and never looked back. He went 3.924/311.41 to Ms. Force's loosing 3.972/301.54. In the Semi, the BME Dragster squared-off with J.R. Todd. Troy left on Todd by 0.14 then drove the BME Dragster to a 3.910/310.55 win. The final was "David"--frugal independent BME--vs. "Goliath"--mega-buck, Don Schumacher Racing. Troy Buff staged against 2015 Top Fuel Champion, Antron Brown. Buff cut an astonishing .012 light, leaving on Brown by .041 and led to half-track when his engine dropped a cylinder. The Matco Tools Dragster caught the BME car, taking the win by a margin-of-victory of .0346-second. Had it not be for one cylinder going away, the Bill Miller Engineering Top Fuel Dragster would have upset the current Top Fuel World Champion to win the NHRA Denso Iridium TT Nationals.
 

Now here's a picture right out of science fiction movie. Because nitromethane exhaust is not so good to breathe, when the team warms-up the motor in the pits, they all don these gas masks. The guy just to the right of driver, Troy Buff, is Car Owner. Bill Miller. Image: BME Ltd

The BME car uses an 10000-hp Brad Anderson Hemi. Atop the BAE Hemi is the Gibson/Miller Mark II Supercharger. Image: Auto Imagery.

EVERYONE on the team works on the car between runs...even the driver. Troy Buff's tasks are supercharger maintenance, care and mixing of the 90% nitromethane fuel and parachute packing. Here, he's fitting the drive assembly to the BME Dragster's Gibson/Miller Mark II Supercharger. Image: BME Ltd.

Perhaps the most labor intensive part on a blown-fuel car is the clutch. Any fuel team has a dedicated "clutch guy" and many teams have more than one person working on clutches. On the BME Team, Brandon Leedy (right) is the clutch expert. The Team has half a dozen clutches and it's a full time job to "rebuild" them after each run. Image: BME, Ltd.

"At this point, Bill Miller Engineering puts-up most of the money. We're, also, pleased to have Goodyear, ARP, XRP, and Red Line Synthetic Oil Corporation helping us out. We're going to keep our schedule to about half the races in 2017 and for next few years."

If you're at an NHRA National Event and you want to meet some of the last independents in Top Fuel, stop by the BME trailer.

During your visit, you may learn a little bit about what persistance can do in drag racing.

Mr. Bill