Rod Millen, Millennium Hall of Fame

Richard Dunn

Despite racing in some of the hairiest conditions in motorsports,

Newport Beach’s Rod Millen has been living at the peak of both danger and

success.

Millen’s worst fear, before throttling forward at the annual Pikes

Peak International Hill Climb in Manitou Springs, Colo., is weather.

Rain, snow, wind. Anything other than dry.

Though the challenging, 12.42-mile dirt and gravel course at Pikes

Peak features 156 turns and altitudes of more than 14,110 feet, Millen has sped up the hill in record time, won eight titles and turns the

grueling course with no guardrails into an art form.

Millen reaches speeds of over 120 mph and has no doubt carved his

niche among champion off-road racers, having dominated Pikes Peak so

freely in his Toyota truck that his own record of 10 minutes 4.06 seconds

(set in 1994) is his greatest demon.

That’s because he’s still trying to crack the 10-minute barrier, and

that’s why Mother Nature’s role every year (the 78th annual Pikes Peak

Hill Club is July 4) is so crucial.

In 1999, when Millen was getting ready to hit the gas pedal in the

Unlimited Class, he learned it had started raining higher up the

mountain. To a driver, that means duller acceleration off hairpin corners

and less than perfect traction on the gravel.

There would be no broken 10-minute mark in the 1900s, but Millen still

owns the mountain.

“I think the development of the truck (a four-wheel-drive with four

cylinders and turbo charged) is there,” said Millen, a member of the

Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame, celebrating the millennium.

“We’re waiting for the perfect road conditions (to break 10 minutes).

Not even perfect, just consistent, dry conditions. In the last three

years, it rained right before we were ready to leave, and there’s not

much you can do about it. But it rains just enough to dampen the

competition.

“In all motorsports, that’s one event, where there are no guardrails

and you race on a gravel road, where you’ve got to be very confident and

you’ve got to know the conditions.”

From down under to the top of the world, Millen’s racing career has

spanned the globe.

Growing up in New Zealand, he began getting serious about racing while

he traveled the country’s back roads to get to the beaches in search of

the best surfing waves.

“I came to enjoy sliding my car around of those dirt roads,” said

Millen, who will be 49 during this year’s Pikes Peak race, on a course

that ascends from 9,390 feet to 14,110 and features 18 switchbacks that

require drivers to shift to first gear and go 20 mph (the average speed

up the hill is 75 mph).

In 1992, Millen and his son, Rhys, became the only father and son to

stand in the Pikes Peak winner’s circle together, as Rhys captured the

Open division in his first attempt, driving his father’s 1991 winning

car.

Rod Millen, who started racing at age 6 with his brother, Steve, began

with go-karts and progressed into building other types of vehicles to

race against each other.

In 1978, after Millen won three consecutive rally race championships

in New Zealand, he moved to Costa Mesa and lived there five years. Within

his first three years in the U.S., Millen had won his first Sports Car

Club of America (SCCA) Pro Rally championship.

Making a name for himself in rally racing, Millen recorded

back-to-back SCCA Group A Pro Rally National Championships in 1987 and

‘88. He earned the overall SCCA Pro Rally championship in ‘89, and also

won the Asia-Pacific Rally Series that year.

Millen, who had runner-up finishes at the Rally of Malaysia and the

Rally of Indonesia in the early 1990s, began competing in select Mickey

Thompson Stadium Off-Road Truck Series events in 1986.

In 1988, Millen won two events, earned three top qualifying times and

finished third in the driver’s points championship. Since joining Team

Toyota in 1991, Millen earned 12 main event victories through ‘97, 15 top

qualifying times and became the only driver in the 12-year history of the

series to win three consecutive Grand National Sport Truck titles

(1992-94).

Today, Millen owns a racing manufacturing company in Huntington Beach.

Rod Millen Motorsports (RMM) was incorporated in 1980. He has three sons:

Rhys, 27, Ryan, 15, and Connor, 7.