Clay Millican hasn’t won as many races this year as he’d like, in fact he hasn’t won a national event on the NHRA POWERade Championship Drag Racing tour during the 2007 season.

None of that mattered last Sunday. He came home and his room was just the way he left it – full of trophies – plus one.

Millican left Maryland International Raceway with one more trophy, scoring his 51st career IHRA national event victory behind the wheel of Evan Knoll's RATT Back for More dragster, winning the Torco Race Fuels President’s Cup Nationals.

Millican just wanted to make his Papa – eh … team owner proud.

“It was just such a great weekend,” Millican said. “Evan wanted us to come here and support Torco Race Fuels and all the great people.  He does so much for drag racing. I don’t know if people even realize what he means to this sport.”

Millican understands what Knoll means to the sport. Likewise Knoll knows what Millican means to the sport. The ever-reaching sponsor has said on several occasions that he purchased the Top Fuel team Millican drove for “because it didn’t matter how many teams I put out there to beat him, he beat them all.”

Clay Millican hasn’t won as many races this year as he’d like, in fact he hasn’t won a national event on the NHRA POWERade Championship Drag Racing tour during the 2007 season.

None of that mattered last Sunday. He came home and his room was just the way he left it – full of trophies – plus one.

Millican left Maryland International Raceway with one more trophy, scoring his 51st career IHRA national event victory behind the wheel of Evan Knoll's RATT Back for More dragster, winning the Torco Race Fuels President’s Cup Nationals.

Millican just wanted to make his Papa – eh … team owner proud.

“It was just such a great weekend,” Millican said. “Evan wanted us to come here and support Torco Race Fuels and all the great people.  He does so much for drag racing. I don’t know if people even realize what he means to this sport.”

Millican understands what Knoll means to the sport. Likewise Knoll knows what Millican means to the sport. The ever-reaching sponsor has said on several occasions that he purchased the Top Fuel team Millican drove for “because it didn’t matter how many teams I put out there to beat him, he beat them all.”

Knoll said it was cheaper just to buy the team from Kenny Koretsky, then Millican’s employer. He then made it possible for Millican to pursue a dream in competing for an NHRA POWERade Championship.

But every once in a while, even as seasoned as a champion may be, they must return home to reaffirm what got them to the dance. It didn’t matter that Millican has used ever quote in the book to describe each individual victory dating back to his first in 2000, Sunday’s performance provided a fresh new outlook.

Millican may have returned home, but that didn’t mean his siblings were going to be waiting with open arms. When your name is Millican and you pull to the line, its akin to being the largest kid in the neighborhood, beating up on Millican brings with it a status symbol.

“I don’t care if it is only our second race competing over here, you’re darn right they were gonna be swinging for us,” Millican said. “We had the number 1 proudly displayed on our car this weekend and I am proud to be the reigning world champion here.”

Millican had to race fellow Evan Knoll Top Fueler teammate Scotty Cannon, who is in the championship chase with T.J. Zizzo and Bruce Litton, in the first round.

Millican said he was prepared to pull up lame if he had to, but those who know Knoll are aware that’s not his way of doing business.

“Evan said to race,” Millican said. “He’s like ‘That’s what Scotty’s there for, that’s what you’re there for’.  All you have to do is look back to when I raced J.R. Todd in Dallas and we were fortunate enough to win that.  If anybody ever thinks that Evan’s telling his teams to lay down all they have to do is look at us the last two weeks. 

“Scotty, I certainly think can win it but it’s an uphill battle now because of the first round in Maryland.  It really bothered me, I mean it really did because I hated to come over, the points battle is so close and I hated to come over and mess things up but my job is to drive this race car and everybody’s job here is to make it win and we did.”

Millican said there’s no calling in sick when you’re part of this team. That’s not at the employer’s request. Crew chief Johnny West was working with torn ligaments in his knee. He was assisted by John Stewart over the course of the weekend. Stewart is assigned to the Melanie Troxel-driven, Vietnam Veterans/POW-MIA dragster.

“He’s probably going to have to have surgery on it, so Evan told Stewie to come in and help him out -- try to be his eyes -- but we couldn’t get him to stand still anyway,” Millican said. “It doesn’t matter what you throw at him, he’s a working guy.  That guy is non-stop, he’s a hard worker.  Everybody on this team is a hard worker.  This is a brand new race car, last week we ran it and started getting bugs out of it.  It’s a brand new car, it’s a brand new everything, we have 2 complete running race cars now; we’ve never had that before.  We’ve got the car that we raced all year and then this one is brand new and it’s awesome.

“I’ve won a lot of these things and all that but this thing is really, really cool.  For Johnny, the new crew chief, it’s awesome.  First win for us, for Evan; it’s a nice momentum builder.

For Millican with each pass until the final round meeting with Zizzo, it felt like old times.

“They [West and Stewart] did a great job just picking where they could gain a little ET and it gained a little ET every run,” Millican said.  “I mean every run this car went quicker and quicker and the final round shocked me.  No way did I think they were going to try to make that thing run 4.57 at 325 and I’m proud of them.” 

Millican had to know it was his day when West brought him into the trailer to let him know that maybe he wasn’t the right man for the job this weekend.

“We got to the track bright and early on Sunday and Johnny looked at me and he’s looked as serious as he could be,” Millican said. “He was like, ‘you don’t need me for a crew chief, you need Jacques Cousteau because I’ve never seen air that was below water.” 

“The air was so good that we were below sea level.  He was like you’re racing below water here.  I was like ‘oh man, that is just great”

“You know the thing about this race track is that when we show up here the air is so good that it makes the Pro Stock, Pro Mods -- all those cars -- just absolutely fly, but for us it puts us so far over center you’ve just got to start backing up to catch up to it. It makes it a challenge.”

With all the factors taken into account, this was more than a weekend visit for Millican. It was a special.

“This is the first one time I’ve been able to win for Evan Knoll and that’s special,” Millican said. “You don’t take any of the wins for granted because they were all hard to win but this one is really special because it was the first time we were able to deliver to him.

“We were in a zone. I love when it becomes automatic. It’s like a program, almost like you’re watching TV.  I’ve seen this program before, it doesn’t always come out like you want it to but there are alternate endings.  Today the ending was perfect.” 

Millican learned Sunday that you can always comes home.