NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

This weekend, as competitors prepare for the 104th running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, few fans realize that one of the most successful racers in the mountain's early sports car era was also one of the founding officers of the National Hot Rod Association.

Long before there were Wally trophies, Mission Foods Drag Racing Series championships, or 345-mph Top Fuel dragsters, NHRA co-founder and first Vice President Ak Miller was carrying the hot rodding spirit to one of the most demanding races in the world.

And winning.

Miller had a genuine addiction to speed. If there was a race anywhere in America, chances are Ak Miller either entered it, won it, or figured out a way to make it faster. His racing résumé stretched across nearly every form of motorsports imaginable. Dry lakes competition. Bonneville. Baja. The Mexican Pan American Road Race. The Mille Miglia in Italy. Motorcycle racing. Land speed records. NHRA drag racing. And Pikes Peak. 

Wally Parks often spoke of his lifelong friend's exploits on the mountain. "He raced at the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, although it is really a very scary mountain; and he won consistently there." That was classic Wally. Understated, but accurate. Miller's name appears throughout the Pikes Peak record books, nearly a dozen times during the formative years of sports car competition on the mountain. During an era when factory-backed teams were rare and ingenuity often mattered more than budget, Miller became the racer everyone measured themselves against. His secret wasn't money. It was hot rodding. 

Like many Southern California racers of the period, Miller campaigned what he knew best: home-built "specials," hot rod race cars assembled from the fastest components he could find. His cars were collections of carefully selected speed equipment, fabricated parts, and mechanical creativity. They were built in garages rather than race shops and reflected the resourcefulness that defined postwar hot rodding. Miller's race cars evolved constantly, but the formula remained remarkably consistent. Lightweight, tube chassis. Maximum displacement. Whatever combination offered the greatest performance advantage. 

Small-block Chevrolets. Oldsmobile V-8s. 427-cid Ford engines. Many were stroked combinations built for maximum cubic inches and maximum torque, a critical advantage on the climb to the 14,115-foot summit where thin air robbed naturally aspirated engines of horsepower. 

Some of Miller's entries were officially recorded as Corvettes and Cobras despite being highly modified machines that shared little with the production cars that inspired them. The cars were unconventional. The results were not. Miller became one of the dominant sports car competitors on the mountain, repeatedly establishing records and collecting victories while representing the same Southern California hot rodding culture that drove the NHRA. The connection between Pikes Peak and the NHRA runs deeper than many realize.

Miller was one of the original members of the Road Runners club and later became President of the Southern California Timing Association. When Wally Parks founded the NHRA in 1951, he selected Miller and Marvin Lee as his fellow officers. All three men's signatures appear on the NHRA's original charter. Parks knew exactly who he was choosing. Ak represented everything the new organization hoped to promote: mechanical innovation, competition, sportsmanship, and a relentless pursuit of speed. 

"He was one of the original hot rodders that made the pages of HOT ROD magazine and set the stage for another generation of young rodders," Parks wrote. But keeping Miller in one place was nearly impossible.

"Keeping him busy working on cars at the Miller Brothers garage was difficult at best, for when he heard of a race someplace he was out the door before Dorothy Miller (his wife) could stop him," wrote Parks.

That wanderlust for speed took him everywhere. He raced motorcycles through Baja. Campaigned the famous El Caballo de Hierro in the Mexican Pan American Road Race. Competed in Italy's Mille Miglia. Set records on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Yet Pikes Peak remained one of the achievements Parks mentioned most often when describing his friend's career. 

"A close friendship with Ray Brock of HOT ROD magazine produced some outstanding results in varied fields of competition, including the Mexican Road Race and Pikes Peak hillclimb, at which Ak excelled," reflected Parks in his memoirs. Miller won in his class nine times at Pikes Peak and also won the 1963 Baja 1000. 

Even after conquering Pikes Peak, Miller never stopped chasing speed. At age 71, he fulfilled another lifelong goal when he joined Bonneville's prestigious 200 MPH Club, recording a 225.765-mph two-way average in a Crosley-bodied streamliner nearly 42 years after helping establish the first Bonneville National Speed Trials. 

Most racers would have been satisfied with a single legendary chapter. Ak Miller collected them for more than half a century.

In a 2005 obituary published in the L.A. Times, and written by Shav Glick for whom the In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip's media room is named, the reflection on the life of MIller reported, "There are no survivors and there will be no services. Miller told friends that he wanted his ashes scattered at the Bonneville, Pikes Peak and Baja race courses."   

This weekend, as modern racers attack the mountain with sophisticated aerodynamics, advanced data systems, all-wheel-drive, and thousands of horsepower, they follow a trail blazed by a hot rodder from Southern California who believed Speed could be found anywhere. 

His name was Ak Miller, he was the vice president of the National Hot Rod Association, and you will feel him there with you. 

Because he is.

Always.