By Sarah Handy, Staff Writer
NASCAR driver Vinnie Miller who drives for BJ McLeod Motorsports in the NASCAR Xfinity Series recently took some time out of his schedule to speak to our Sarah Handy at Charlotte Motor Speedway. See what Vinnie had to say about his season thus far, his racing history, and much more.
Some fans who follow racing may not know your racing history; you grew up racing quarter midgets and then found yourself getting into late models. What made you want to get into racing when you were younger?
Miller: My grandfather and grandmother just got me a quarter midget and said hop in and go. At first, I wasn’t really into the whole thing, and then I got my first win when I was six, after I had been doing it for two years. Ever since that day I loved it.
What’s your fondest memory or memories that stand out to this point in your racing career?
Miller: Oh geez! Yeah, when we use to race quarter midgets, I was late getting to the qualifying grid one time. They strapped me all in, got my helmet on, put me on the pit cart and they were towing me up there in the golf cart. There was an Escalade coming the wrong way, they jerked the wheel on the golf cart to the right and had me flipping about five times off the pit cart and I went out, qualified and got the pole.
Your best finishes of the season have come at Talladega and Daytona in July with finishes of 19th and 11th being your best career finish in NXS competition so far. You’ve shown you can produce solid results on the superspeedways. Is it important to find someone to work with at those two tracks or a combination of that as well as staying out of trouble?
Miller: I think it’s a mix of you know your teammates are going to help you. At those tracks we try to get with some other teams. We work closely with the Johnny Davis guys when we go to those tracks, they help push us, get in line with us. A lot of the backside of the garage we all work together and our main goal is to just stay out of trouble and be there with five to go.
Overall, your average start and finish have both improved from 2018 and we aren’t even though the season yet. What do you think has played a major role in that happening?
Miller: I think it’s a mixture of experience and having a little bit more reliable equipment then I had last year. I think that’s a big part of it. You know, being patient, waiting towards the end of the race to make some more risky moves, driving smarter and just waiting for people to mess up and being able to drive by them easier.
Are there any tracks in particular that you feel you’d like to improve upon the most?
Miller: If I could figure out the road course thing that would be kind of nice since we have to do four of them. As far as ovals go, really just Richmond but we had a good weekend there last week up until I blew my engine.
What’s your favorite race track on the schedule?
Miller: Dover, going there next week!
If you weren’t racing what do you think you’d be doing? (Fan question)
Miller: I’d just be a hobo somewhere, wake up in the morning, go get twenty bucks to feed myself.
Whatever works
Miller: Yeah, that’s literally what I’d be doing because racing is pretty much all I know. I don’t want to do anything else.
Do you have any pre-race routine or anything you may consider superstitious? (Fan question)
Miller: It use to be wearing pink underwear every race but I kind of went away with that one. Just wear my Pit Vipers (Sunglasses) and party shirts to the race track.
(Photo: Vinnie Miller/Facebook)
It has to be pretty special to return to the Roval where you made your first start with this BJ McLeod last season?
Miller: Yeah, it’s a cool weekend. I wish it was on an oval, I wish this was an oval. It’s cool, you know I’ve been hanging out and been friends with BJ for about two years now. We started hanging out last year on the lake because he has a boat and I have a boat. That’s how we got to talking and then this deal just came about from a friendship and it’s worked out really good ever since for the past year. I’ve had more consistent finishes over here, more guidance and I think that’s helped a lot too.
(Photo: Vinnie Miller/Facebook)
How was the Over the Edge Charlotte to benefit the NASCAR Foundation and the NASCAR Hall of Fame Foundation? Not afraid of heights?
Miller: Not afraid of heights. I’m an adrenaline junkie so it wasn’t nothing just kind of hopped off the building. I was kind of hoping we’d be able to actually jump and repel like you see in the movies, but they gave us some safety thing where if we tried that it would just catch us, and we’d just be hanging there. I was sad about that.
(Photo: Vinnie Miller/Facebook)
I’m not a fan of heights, so I don’t know how I would’ve done with that.
Miller: One of two things is going to happen you’re going to get the bottom safely or fall and die, either way.
The shirt you wore that day seemed to gather quite a bit of attention. I had a fan ask me to ask you where you got it from? (Fan question)
Miller: Party Shirt International, it’s a co-company of Pit Viper. Chuck the owner of that is part owner in it and they just sent me some shirts and said hey start wearing these at the track. I said okay whatever, so we keep the black one for special occasions only. It’s the shirt everyone loves so it can’t be brought out too much.
(Photo: Vinnie Miller/Facebook)
Have you played the new NASCAR Heat video game yet as yourself? (Fan question)
Miller: I haven’t played as myself.
I’ve played as you. I’m that one random girl who actually games. I don’t do very well with the online. I usually end up getting wrecked by someone random who decides to put me into the wall.
Miller: If you like games, have you tried Wreckfest yet?
No, is it good?
Miller: Oh yeah, it’s awesome!
What’s do you feel is the biggest misconception the fans have of the smaller teams in the sport?
Miller: I feel like unless their a super fan and really know what their talking about they look at our smaller teams like us as “Oh, they just suck”, when in reality we just don’t have the big five, six-million dollar budget to go run up front like the bigger teams.
You do what you can with what you have.
Miller: Yeah, we do what we can with what we have and at the end of the day I think if the sport went the direction of where it’s more cost effective and you can go to the wind tunnel and all that stuff I think we’d really start to excel then because we know how to already run to the best of our equipment without all that stuff.
I may already have my answer to this with Dover being mentioned earlier, but if you could choose to make your Cup debut anywhere where would it be?
Miller: I don’t know if it would be Dover or Michigan because I think Michigan would be a little more special. Obviously, I like Michigan it’s one of my favorite tracks, it’s my home track. I’ve ran good there in ARCA, I’ve ran good there in Xfinity, and I just like driving Michigan so I think it would be between Dover and Michigan. Dover’s a very fun race but it’s double the Xfinity race. It would be Dover or Michigan for sure, probably Michigan though just because of all my friends and family.
If you had to give a young fan wanting to get involved in racing any piece of advice what would it be?
Miller: Unless your rich, go do something else. It’s hard. It’s really hard to get to this point because once you do it’s hard to find sponsors to keep you going. If you have the money to do it than I say great, go do it and if not then I would say race short tracks, have fun with it. This is fun, I’d do it for the rest of my life.
Where do you hope to see yourself in five to ten years?
Miller: Obviously, I’m going to say I’d love to be racing with a big Cup team as any driver but realistically if I could do what I’m doing now, making the same money I am now for the next five to ten years, I’d be happy doing that. Hell, I’ll do it for twenty of thirty years until I can’t crawl out of the car anymore.
Kickin’ The Tires would like to thank Vinnie for taking time to sit down with us this weekend and answer not only questions we had but fan submitted questions as well.
If you’d like to follow Vinnie on Social Media, the information is provided below:
Official Website: http://www.vinniemillerracing.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/VinnieMillerRacing
Twitter: @VinnieMiller_ and @78VinnieMiller
Instagram: @vinniemiller_