Pomona should be interesting for the BME Engineering Team


“I will comply.”

That’s the answer Top Fuel team owner Bill Miller begrudgingly delivered when asked if his new Top Fuel chassis will adhere to the SFI spec enforced by the NHRA when time comes for NHRA Winternationals tech inspection in Pomona, Ca.

What did Miller have to do to bring the chassis to SFI spec?

“We had to – from a distance of three inches back of the rear driver’s support upright, saw the tube in half,” Miller explained. “As far as I am concerned destroy the reliability of the car at that point. We had to insert a tube that was machined down to slip inside the inch-and-a-half .095 – six inches long is the tube – so you would stick three inches in the forward tube and three inches in the rear tube. Then you’d weld it 360-degrees in a circle then mark each end to show the inspector where the tube stops.”

Pomona should be interesting for the BME Engineering Team

“I will comply.”

That’s the answer Top Fuel team owner Bill Miller begrudgingly delivered when asked if his new Top Fuel chassis will adhere to the SFI spec enforced by the NHRA when time comes for NHRA Winternationals tech inspection in Pomona, Ca.

What did Miller have to do to bring the chassis to SFI spec?

“We had to – from a distance of three inches back of the rear driver’s support upright, saw the tube in half,” Miller explained. “As far as I am concerned destroy the reliability of the car at that point. We had to insert a tube that was machined down to slip inside the inch-and-a-half .095 – six inches long is the tube – so you would stick three inches in the forward tube and three inches in the rear tube. Then you’d weld it 360-degrees in a circle then mark each end to show the inspector where the tube stops.”

Miller pointed out this process made the car legal per the SFI specs. He made these adjustments under protest.

“If you’re asking me if I like having to do this, of course I don’t,” Miller said. “We built the car to be – in the words of SFI – better than the spec. We certainly didn’t build it to be worse, thinking we could get away with it.

 

 

I was 120-percent sure that it was going to fly right on through. In fact, I was pretty proud of the fact that we improved on the SFI design using their verbiage and wording as the guideline.

“As visible of a personality as I am because of the last two years with what we have done with the normalized tubing versus heat treated, it would be very naïve of me to think they were not going to look at my car with a fine-tooth comb. The fact that we decided to make this car better than the SFI spec and drag it all the way to Phoenix – fly in four crewmembers from Chicago – bring in the driver from Texas – and spend all of that money on room and board, we didn’t bring the car out there on the hope that it would pass. I would never do that.

“I was 120-percent sure that it was going to fly right on through. In fact, I was pretty proud of the fact that we improved on the SFI design using their verbiage and wording as the guideline.”

Miller said he will be “a good boy” in Pomona.

“According to Dan Olson,” Miller said. “And I sent him pictures of the way Ty Baumgartner modified one of Clay Millican’s cars, which happened to have inch-and-a-half tubing in it, which is what mine has, and Dan said on the phone, if it looks like that, there will be zero problems.”

Baumgartner is a member on the SFI chassis committee.

“By duplicating his modification in our chassis, there should be no problems passing tech,” Miller added. “I still don’t like it.”

UPDATE: Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com confirmed that Miller’s Top Fuel dragster, to be driven this weekend by Troy Buff, passed technical inspection.