RELATED ARTICLE: McMILLEN TEAM ROLLS UP SLEEVES, LOOKS FOR VETERANS TO HELP

Terry McMillen has come agonizingly close the past two years to making the Top Fuel Countdown to the Championship field. And the chance to be one of 10 to compete for the ultimate prize, the supreme satisfaction, has become his sole mission -- until now.

As he starts his third season in the National Hot Rod Association, the Hoosier Thunder Motorsports team owner-driver has a greater cause. It reaches out far beyond his Elkhart, Ind., headquarters, branches out past the gates to any racetrack, goes straight from his heart to the heart of America. He is not only saying thank-you to veterans of all wars and conflicts. He's paying more than lip service.

McMillen will debut a second dragster this spring, the Armed Forces Racing Dragster, likely at the Las Vegas or Charlotte race. The dragster will run in honor of veterans all across the country and be used to draw attention to veteran issues. McMilen's outreach will also include job fairs for veterans at each NHRA race.

"Partial funding is in place right now to do selected races. Our ultimate goal is to fund the program for the entire year," McMillen said.

He said he will announce the driver of the Armed Forces Racing Dragster in the near future.

"Terry will have a team with a mission," Rick Ecker, president and CEO of Armed Forces Racing, said.

Ecker visited with McMillen, appropriately enough, last Veterans Day weekend at the NHRA Finals at Pomona, Calif., and shared that Armed Forces Racing is about meeting the needs of all veteran service members. And McMillen adopted the objective.

"Armed Forces Racing is about more than just racing. It's about community outreach. It's about educating the American people about our veterans and the issues that they face," Ecker said. "For the last couple of years, I've been looking for the right team to associate the Armed Forces Racing brand with. Terry completely -- completely -- embraced what we were doing and our cause."

Said McMillen, "I'm blessed to be doing what I'm doing, and in life, you've got to pay it forward."

McMillen added a unique element to the deal: a job fair at each NHRA venue as part of his hospitality offering.

"One of the things Terry told me last November he wanted to do, what he thought would be a cool thing, is to create a job fair for veterans," Ecker said.

Jesse Medina of the Association of the U.S. Army -- a private, non-profit educational organization that supports America's Army and its families -- will spearhead the job fair program.

Ecker said that during the past couple of months, besides McMilen and his Hoosier Thunder Motorsports team, he has met a number of people who share his desire to help veterans.

"I recently hosted a 'mini summit' at my home in Virginia, where I brought in the founder of Fueled by the Fallen, Kevyn Major Howard; the founder of Vet Hunters, Joe Leal; Chris Johnson, of First Foundation, an investment company in southern California; and a few friends with whom who I’ve shared the Armed Forces Racing vision," Echer said. Those gathered understood the mission. They understood the cause. They understood the problems. Then they said, 'How could we fix it?' Tie in all of those issues, tie in the Vet Hunters program, tie in Fueled by the Fallen, tie in the job fairs . . . We figured out a way to do it: through motorsports," he said.

Several companies have pledged support to the program, but more is needed. McMillen continues to work with the NHRA to make sure the job fairs will function smoothly.

Whoever drives the 7,000-horsepower Armed Forces Racing Dragster won't be overwhelmed by its raw, brute strength. What will overwhelm that racer, undoubtedly, will be the idea that he will be a huge public voice with an attention-getting platform for such a special and deserving group of Americans.

"People pay attention to motorsports. People are intrigued by motorsports. And motorsports carries a pretty important and powerful message," Ecker said.

To clarify, Ecker said, "Armed Forces Racing is a private venture and is not affiliated with the Department of Defense and does not receive federal funding." AFR, he indicated, continually works with additional marketing partners to join in supporting the race team.

Ecker also said that AFR "is working on a line of apparel and merchandise, as well as a membership element to the race team, which in time will provide funding for the team. It is the goal to have AFR become one of (if not the first) self-funded programs on the racing circuit and provide a team that is truly dedicated to the men and women in uniform, past and present.

"There's one more key element to this puzzle. It's a non-profit organization that I started a couple of years ago called Veterans' Hope," Ecker said.  It's "an umbrella organization that reaches out to hundreds of thousands of non-profit organizations and veteran-owned businesses and pulls them together into one voice." These private-sector groups and agencies give hard-core, real-world assistance to U.S. military service members and their families. Right now, about 45 organizations are under this umbrella, but more organizations are joining the partnership every day.

"Veterans' Hope is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Money is raised through corporate and personal donation, as well as from Armed Forces Racing," Ecker said. "The Job Fair hosted by Veterans' Hope, in cooperation with the NHRA, Terry McMillen Racing, and Armed Forces Racing, is being funded by the corporations attending the job fair."