SCCA Racer Slade Miller Ready to go Racing in New Zealand

Jan 7, 2005
Timaru, New Zealand –– Team USA Scholarship driver Slade Miller has made steady progress during two days of testing with his patriotically liveried Stealth/Van Diemen at Timaru International Motor Raceway on New Zealand’s South Island. The 18-year-old from Edmond, Oklahoma, is now eager to begin his international career tomorrow, in the first of three New Zealand Formula Ford Championship races to be held this weekend on the 2.4-kilometer (1.49-mile) road course.
“Testing has gone well and I’m really looking forward to seeing how I stack up against the rest of the field in the races,” said Miller. “At the start of today I was a little bit frustrated, being a little more off the pace than I wanted to be, but we worked hard at it and the car is definitely handling better. By the end of the day I was pleased, because we were just a few tenths [of a second] down on the pace-setters.”

Miller’s fastest lap today was 1m 06.33s, which last year would have been good enough for a top-three position in qualifying, just a tenth slower than the pole position lap — set in the very same car — by another Team USA Scholarship representative, Joe D’Agostino. (Incidentally, current Champ Car rising star A.J. Allmendinger also took the pole at Timaru aboard a Team USA Scholarship car in 2002.) Still, Miller knows full well that the past 12 months has witnessed constant engine development in the ultra-competitive New Zealand Formula Ford series – especially on the lighter aluminum cylinder heads which have been introduced over the past couple of years – resulting in faster lap times at most venues. He knows, too, that there is more to come from both himself and his car.

“We still have a bit too much understeer, which is hurting my lap times in two key places, but we know what we want to do for the car in time for qualifying tomorrow,” he continued. “The car has proved very responsive so far, so if it reacts the way we expect it to, I think we’ll be looking to do fairly well.”

The Timaru race track is tight and twisty, but Miller has enjoyed its technical challenges: “I like the track,” he said. “It’s tight and has a lot of flowing corners where you have to be smooth in order to be fast. It’s relatively flat but it does have some fun aspects.