In Their Own Words - Paul Miller

TVR: How many different types of cars did you drive then?
Paul: I drove a sprint... that wasn't for me. That seemed umm... a sprint car just seemed too loose. I finished 4th.. the first sprint I drove was at Lincoln one day, yeah. And umm, I was so tight in the car that my knees were up against the steering and you had to hit the brake to set the car up... I hit the brake and my foot went under, under the brake. There I am, I can't get my foot up and guess where I was? Number one, I was out front. Here I am and this guy from Maryland, number four. Hal Browning... Smoke use to drive it too. So I had to slow down, pull my foot up and I ended up finishing 4th that night. It was a fast car, but it was so light it was off the ground more than it was on. So the next week I asked Brymesser if he'd be interested in running it. I said, "I just don't fit in there. I gotta have more room." Well he's got short legs. He got in a wreck at Susky with Jerry Karl and he broke his hip. That car was like 1300 pound and light. And, he umm... broke his hip and he was out for a while.

I drove a midget... almost. At Flemington. Got the car... we were out of fuel. He forgot to put the fuel in it, so I never even got it started. But late models and anything I could. Junk! <laughs> some junk... We had this late model down there on Philadelphia Street. It was a '51 olds... Hydromatic. It even had the radio in it. They use to kid me. I'd say, "Man! This is terrible!" They'd say, "Well, if you'd keep turning the radio off you could drive better." But umm, I was number 133, but that didn't last long. My cousin took it out and he was driving and flipped it end over end. He demolished that.

TVR: Who was your cousin?
Paul: Umm... or my nephew... I don't know what relation he is to me. His name is Miller too... Harold Miller. But he flipped it right in the front straightaway.

TVR: Prior to your racing career, what drivers were your favorites?
Paul: Well see, we use to go see the sprint cars. I'd say Tommy Hinnershitz was my favorite. As a matter of fact, when Tommy use to drive he'd always run high, broad sliding up around the top of the track. Well, when I got in there with no experience, that's what I did. I went in there and I'm straight out over. <laughs> I'm right over the top 'cause I thought that's what you gotta do. The sprint cars... I followed them a lot and went with Stiney (Ottis Stine) and them when they went from track to track.

Local drivers... I'd say really would have been Bobby Abel, later Kenny Weld. Kenny was a real good driver, but he never thought he was. He use to always say, "I'm not a driver." He could build a car, but he'd say, "I'm not a driver." But he impressed me pretty damn much.

TVR: Who were some of your biggest influences and mentors early in your career?
Paul: Ooh... I'd say Bobby Abel. He use to tell me how to take it into the turns and stuff like that. Bobby Abel, more than anybody. Yeah.

TVR: Okay. Let me throw some names at you and tell us some of your best memories of each of them?
Bobby Abel?
Paul: Bobby was devoted to stock car racing. He could really build a car. I remember the first car he ever run, he use to go to Lancaster, Mason Dixon... and he raced down in Delaware every once in a while. He could really make a car... set a car up to handle. Even after years when he was driving that one, he'd always have that front wheel off the ground. He'd get through those turns so dag gone easy. He wasn't crazy or anything like that. He didn't drive like he was crazy. He was sort of cautious in racing. I don't know if he really made money, but if anybody made money in racing, he did because he took car of his equipment. He was very good at driving... and very good at setting it up too.

Bobby Hersh?
Hersh was a wild man... crazy. It don't matter what he drove, he drove like he was crazy. <laughs> That made him a winner too. I mean, he didn't back down for anybody. <laughs> He also drove on the road like that too. <laughs> He was crazy... I remember a race one night. He always had ill feelings towards Johnny Mackison, because John would beat him. One night on the last lap, John passed him to win the feature. They're coming around for slow laps... he jumped out of the car and jumped over on Mackison's car and started pounding on him. The car went straight out over, Lincoln (Speedway), down into the pits without Hersh... he's there fighting... because he got beat. And I told him that was so silly. He said that he cut him off... he never cut him off. John didn't drive like that, but he was crazy. Drove hard all the time, no matter who's car he drove.

Bobby Gerhart?
Paul: Consistent... good driver. Two times I beat him. Really, to stay ahead of him, I did chop him off a couple times. And, he went down and talked to my owner. He said, "You know your driver is cutting over in front of me." That's the only way I could keep him in back, so... two weeks in a row at Lincoln, I chopped him down. I'll never forget my boy... me and Bobby were fighting for the lead at Susquehanna one night and we both spun out... we hit each other. Spun out, and my boy started crying and my wife said, "Well, Paul's alright!" He said, "Yeah, but Bobby ain't!" He was cheering for Bobby, he wasn't cheering for me.

Gary Wolford?
Paul: Another good driver... another good driver... hard driver. But, umm... Gary got hurt up at Silver Springs. Sometimes I think Gary didn't think he was as good as he was. Because, he didn't want to go into sprints or anything like that and see... that's where the money was. You had to get into the sprint car, or the super modifieds to make money. He'd go to Reading and he really run good for a while, but he always went back to Silver Springs. I don't think he thought he was good, but he was a good driver.

Frankie Thompson?
Paul: Another good driver. He had Port Royal sewed up. He won the championship, what? 3 years in a row. In Al McClure's car... a guy from New York he drove for. He was so good at Port Royal that you that you knew who was gonna win. Yet, he could take the same car to the Grove and he wasn't as competitive as he was at Port Royal.

One more... Ed Zirkle?
Paul: Ed was a good driver too. Ed tried to do it on his own, but there just wasn't enough money. He won a lot of features. He drove for Mike Gurtizen and started winning features. His own can, he just... I could see it just didn't have in it what the other cars did. He won with it, but... Oh yeah, we picked him to be our backup driver. We had two backup drivers that we'd start, Zirkle and Smoke. We had #33, #133 and #331. Smoke didn't stay in there long, he had a real piece of junk. <laughs> I think he only raced about two races in that.

TVR: Who were some of the more talented car builders/mechanics of your during your career?
Paul: Davey Brown was the best. Not only in this area, but the best in the country. Dave Brown could have been... if he'd of got a round a little bit, he could have been one of the best NASCAR mechanics around. He made a car look good, not only in motors... in the way it handled and everything. My gosh, we put this one motor of his in our car for Langhorne. When we took it apart, it had 3 different pistons in it. We thought it was a good motor. It wasn't. It was a junk motor, but he could set it up and it would run. He's still like that. Look how many people are after him to set their cars up. He can watch them and see what's wrong with them... you ain't getting through the turns right, or stuff like that.

TVR: Who do you think were the most underrated drivers your ran against?
Paul: Underrated? That's a tough one. I often think I could of done better... I had a chance to get into Trone's #39... Ed Stauffer... when Hersh got hurt, I guess that was when. He come up and said, "You got the chance to drive it, if you want it." But, I didn't want to leave Appler, Ken Appler. He was so good to me. I know id I'd of got into the #39 I would have done a lot better. A lot of these drivers went out... they wanted the money. I didn't care about the money. I liked the sport. A lot of times in the #133, they wanted to pay me. I said, "No, put it back in the car." And towards the end, they said, "Well, from now on, you take... 30%, and you take it." I didn't mind that! <laughs>

But... I'm trying to think of a driver that was underrated... Bobby Weaver! There's one. Bobby weaver could drive anything. Modifieds... he made any car look good. Right now, I still think he's one of the best drivers around. I use to tell Gary Wolford up at the Springs, "Is Weaver gonna drive your other car tonight?" Wolford would say, "yeah..." I'd say "Good! Then it'll be a good race out there." <laughs> Wolford got mad at me one week and he waited... when I come up, he poured a whole bucket of water on me when I said that! <laughs hard> He's not loud or anything, he can make a car really handle... the car he has now looks good.

TVR: What tracks did you compete at:
Paul: Umm... Lincoln, Williams Grove, Susquehanna, Langhorne, Reading, Flemington, Allentown, Bowling Green, Saint Thomas, Hagerstown... oh my gosh, I probably missed some. Orange County, that was a 3/4 mile track, dirt track. I had a ride at Pocono, and umm, it was between me and Leroy Felty. It was a Champ car. Buster Warke owned it and Leroy said he wasn't gonna drive it. So, I said I'd take a chance at it. In the meantime, Leroy changed his mind and he drove it. It was an old Indy car. I'd of liked to try it, jus to see what it's like on that big track.

TVR: Which track do you think was your best or favorite track?
Paul: Well, the best track I ever did was Lincoln. Lincoln was a track you had to get use to. Tobias, Felty and them would come over an they hated that track because... the 3rd and 4th turn were hard. You had to set the car up for that turn, to get through it. We had a good race up there one night... me... there was 4 of us fighting for the lead. Me, Paxton, umm... Brymesser was the 4th one back, and who was 3rd? Oh! Gerhart! We went in there 3 abreast on the last lap. I hit Paxton, run him into the wall, went up over the infield, down the other side... and beat Bobby Gerhart across the finish line. They even gave it to Bobby Gerhart, but the girls up in scoring said no, I had my front wheels ahead of him. That was a close race that night. But, I made up my mind I wasn't gonna lose on the last lap, and when we went in there, they were all right aside of me. Because, at Reading I lost one on the last lap, going for the checkered flag cause of an over lapped car and I say to this day I'd still run over that over lapped car, if I knew that. But Charlie Bailey was right in back of me and he passed me. You hate to lose on the last lap. I don't mind losing earlier, but when you lead all that time... and you lose out. <shakes his head>

TVR: Which track was your worst or least favorite?
Paul: Hagerstown. Especially a day race. Yup... Hagerstown. The track would get hard and I'd have all this power and can't use it. That's where I ran into the water truck with this late model. It had a lot of power. First time I went to Port Royal, I did good. First time I went up to Selinsgrove... I went up to Selinsgrove and I was about the only bug there. All the rest were sprints. I didn't do good in the heat, but come the consy... I had to start back pretty far and I come up and I passed a lot of sprint cars! With a bug! And Appler said, "Now that's the way I want you to drive!" <laughs> He use to get on me a lot.

TVR: What was the most memorable or proudest moment of your career?
Paul: Langhorne! Langhorne, definitely. I was just proud to get in that race. I qualified at Lincoln... they gave you a bowl. And then the next year I went down and drove for a guy, Pete McCrain... he lived in the Gap. two years in a row I drove somebody else's car down there and kept Zirkle in the #133. I was doing pretty good down there and I broke an axle in this one guy's car and Charlie Juzumbak, he was the champion up at Wall Stadium, he run over my rear wheel and he flipped out over the turn and ended up in the hospital. I went to the hospital and talked to him. He couldn't figure out why I all of a sudden stopped. I told him my wheel was coming off. That was in LIFE Magazine... I can't find that LIFE... I want to see that picture. I'm looking through these LIFE magazines and I can't find it. But, there's a picture of him, upside down, going through the air. Here my wheel was coming out off my car.

TVR: What was the most disappointing or hardest moment of your career?
Paul: Williams Grove. After all year, I was 2nd in points to Ray Tilley. I had a heck of a race with Milford Wales and he beat me out by 5 points, that night. That was disappointing, because I... I know I wasn't gonna win the points championship, but just to be 2nd in points to Tilley... I was very disappointed.

TVR: What was the funniest moment of your career?
Paul: I probably got a lot of them! <laughs> Well, I remember one night I blew an engine... at Lincoln and Dick Worley... I pulled in the infield and I said I got a miss. Well, he looks under. He says, "Crawl out of it." I said, "Why? Get the miss of it and Ill get back out." Here there's a rod sticking out of the bottom of the pan about that far. <holds hands about 6 inches apart> No wonder I had a miss! <laughs>

Me and Dick use to argue a lot. I use to... I'd come in and give him the devil. I'd rum him around the car and if I got him, I choked him! 'Cause Dick use to say... he'd blame it on me. Then one day after warm-ups, he said, "Get out of the car and let me in there." And he went in and they had the track really wet. And he went in, right around in a ring. He let the car sit in the bottom of the turn and walked back! <laughs> So he said he learned his lesson there.

TVR: Of all your competitors and associates (drivers, mechanics, etc), who were your closest friends?
Paul: I guess one of my closest friends would be Ed Zirkle. I thought there was a lot of... Ed never really had a car in those days. He ran an old 6-cylinder Chevy. And then, I asked him to drive one of the backup cars. He thought that was really fast. We weren't that fast, but he made it look good. For years, we were real close. Then he got a chance to run a real good car. He drove Trone's, he drove Gus Linder's, he drove a couple good ones. He asked, "Do you mind if I go?" I said, "heck no, you go ahead. If you can better yourself, you go with it." And I guess me and Ed were closer than anybody.

Dick (Worley), yeah... and Bob Eshelman. There's another good mechanic. He built the cars. He was so... he measured everything. If the car was say... two inches wider than he wanted, he'd cut it down and start all over again. He wanted it perfect. And you know, when he did that coach, I laughed because that was about the ugliest thing you ever saw. We didn't have it painted or anything. Going to Langhorne, man, we were putting tires on... we had to leave on a Thursday night. He could really make a car. And the one that's... it's around here yet. He did that to exact... he had like a blueprint of the car when he built it. And he built that one, same way that uh, the one we raced. He's very particular.

Paul's close friend and teammate, driver Ed Zirkle	Paul and Buck Guilfoy prove once and for all the theory that that two solids cannot occupy the same space at the same time.
Paul and some friends getting together!	1st & 2nd turn action at Susquehanna Speedway.

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