THE STADIUM TRUCK

Mickey Thompson’s Grand National Sport Truck Racing was the first short-track off-road racing series. It ran through the late 1980s and early ’90s and came as a welcome relief to a weary Millen: “The bit I loved was coming off running the Asia-Pacific rally, where each rally was three to four weeks to run — I was just so tired of being on the road. With this, I would do the testing during the week, which was wonderful. It would be nothing to do 100 laps in a day and roll it a few times either, just because we wanted to make it better and better, so we were constantly pushing. Race day was Saturday, and we would be home by Saturday night or Sunday morning.”

Racing inside stadiums like Anaheim in front of 75,000 people must have been a buzz, and Rod was successful, winning three consecutive championships in ’92, ’93, and ’94.

The truck was built in-house at MillenWorks and featured a tube frame and 24 inches of wheel travel, with the rear struts transversely mounted and all billet alloy suspension arms. The engine, an injected 3.0-litre Toyota V6 with only one forward and one reverse gear, had a top speed of 64mph.