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Brett Miller caps off Mini Gold Cup with strong run
By Gary Thomas
Chico, CA - March 12, 2007... 17-year-old Brett Miller kicked off his rookie season with the Golden State Challenge Series at Silver Dollar Speedway's 21st annual Mini Gold Cup and had an impressive run in Saturday night's 40 lap main event to finish off the weekend.
It all began on Friday night with 44 cars on hand to begin the 2007 Golden State Challenge King of California Series season. Brett drew an early number and was the ninth driver to hit the speedway for timed qualifications. The Chico native turned a 12.440 on his second lap to put the Care-Free Pools, Platinum Powder Coating, Care-Free Custom Graphics No. 1x, second out of the first nine cars and his lap held up for 19th overall out of the 44 cars that took time.
Brett lined-up on the outside of the front row in heat race number three alongside veteran Craig Stidham. As the green flag waved Brett powered into the lead and began to pull away the field. With the cool night time temperatures, the track remained super tacky and hooked up in the heat races. Brett was on the hammer and picked up the front end doing a major wheelie midway through the heat race off of turn two. He wrestled the JP's Paint and Body Works, A1A Performance Muffler Maxim back down and continued to lead. "The Catfish" was untouchable as he went on to dominate the rest of the distance and pick up the win, which also gave him five points towards the GSC championship.
Brett started the 30 lap GSC season opening main event outside row seven but was involved in a pair of cautions before a couple laps were completed and it put an early end to feature.
Saturday brought about a new night as no drivers were locked in from the previous night's races and everyone started off with clean slate.
Once again Brett drew an early number and he was the second car out in qualifying. His first lap of 12.307 was his fastest and at the end of qualifying it placed the Wolfe Electric, Jandy Pool Products, Al's Concrete No. 1x 18th quick out 45 cars. He then started outside the front row in the second heat race and settled into fourth after a couple laps. Brett then got a little loose and slid sideways as turn four had began to slick off a tick. He fell back to sixth but did a nice job to straighten the car back out and continue on without bringing out a caution. He finished sixth to put himself in the B-main.
The B-main saw Brett line-up inside row four and the track had developed some rough spots, which made it very treacherous. Brett ran right around the sixth and final transfer spot the whole race and when the checkered flag flew he was sitting in the sixth position to put himself into the main event.
Brett started in the 22nd position for 40 lap $6,000 to win Mini Gold Cup main event. The crew hit the set-up and Brett looked impressive early on as he passed a number of cars within the first five laps. The track was extremely challenging as turns three and four were one groove on the bottom and turns one and two were rutted up and hooky like old school Silver Dollar Speedway. A number of cautions came out during the first 10 laps and the pace of the race was slowed in its early stages. In three laps Brett had already made it up to 12th and he wasn't done there. When we finally got some successive green flag laps in, Brett continued the charge and by lap 10 he had made it up to ninth. Brett was doing a magnificent job in a field that saw some of the best drivers around, but he was involved in a red flag incident with fellow youngster Kyle Hirst and Jason Botsford with less than 15 laps left, which forced him to go to the pits for repairs.
The 1x pit crew completed repairs and got the Aspire Homes, River City Pool Plastering, Country Crafters Cabinet Shop machine back out on the track for the restart. Brett recovered and finished the 40 lap contest with a respectful 11th place finish.
For Brett and the team it was a weekend where they showed that they have lots of speed, and as Brett continues to run with the Golden State Challenge Series he's only going to get that much more confident and comfortable racing with some of the best drivers in the Western United States. If the first weekend was any example, it should be an outstanding rookie season with GSC for the 17 year old driver and ending up in victory lane sometime during season isn't out of the question. Brett currently sits 12th in GSC points after the first two rounds of competition, 33 out of the lead.
Next Friday and Saturday it will be off to Hanford's Kings Speedway for Brett and the Care-Free Pools Racing team as they compete in a double-header weekend of Golden State Challenge Series action. This will be Brett's first time running the 3/8 mile speedway but he has commented that he's seen it on film and can't wait to tackle the track.
Along with Calistoga and Tulare, Kings Speedway is one of the three largest tracks that the Golden State Challenge Series will go to this year and its always had the characteristic of being one of the raciest dirt ovals in California. This will be the first time since July of 2005 that GSC has gone to Kings Speedway however, as the track changed management a couple different times last season and the series didn't compete at the track.
Both night's will be capped off with 30 lap features and each will pay $3,000 to win. Brett has limited starts on the larger high-speed tracks, but when he has run them, he has done quite well and it will be a great learning experience for him this weekend.
For more info on Brett Miller and Care-Free Pools Racing visit www.brettmillerracing.net
www.sprintcarchallengetour.com
www.placervillespeedway.com
www.stocktondirttrack.com
www.thunderbowlraceway.com
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