‘The Mouse’ was a racing legend
Short-track legend Melius designed and engineered his cars
He worked six days a week and raced on most of the nights in an era when the stripped-down, souped-up Milwaukee modifieds and colorful nicknames ruled the short-track scene.
Miles “The Mouse” Melius won his share of championships.
He lost a few teeth.
And he nurtured the passion of a tiny teenage fan who would become a NASCAR Hall of Famer.
A legend of the 1950s and ’60s, Melius continued to help rivals after his driving days and attended races until last year, when declining vision made it difficult for him to see the cars. Melius died Tuesday at age 95.
“I was so impressed with the racing activity in Wisconsin and especially the performance of this Miles ‘The Mouse’ Melius,” said three-time Daytona 500 winner Bobby Allison, who moved to Wisconsin for a job in 1954.
“I was 17 years old, and 5-foot-4 and 110 pounds. I looked little, and I sounded little, but I was just full of anxiety and interest in this tremendous sport of racing. And I would go to the pits and Miles Melius would say hello to me. Here’s the guy that’d just won the feature the night before or even tonight.
“He had people around him, and he’d say hello to me. I thought that was so special of him to speak directly to me. I paid attention to how he did things and how he treated people and listened to what he had to say.”
Melius died of complications of old age, said Dick Melius, the fourth of his seven children. He was preceded in death by his wife, June, in 2003.
At Melius’ request, there will be no funeral. A memorial will be held in the fall at the Southeastern Wisconsin Short Track Hall of Fame, Dick Melius said. Miles Melius was an inductee in the hall’s inaugural class of 2007.
Melius won 11 area titles and more individual track championships on the dusty bullrings in Hales Corners, Cedarburg, Beaver Dam and elsewhere. From 1959-61 alone, he won 86 features, according to the Midwest Racing News.
Included in that stretch was a 16-race season sweep at Beaver Dam Raceway in 1961.
“His stamina was just incredible,” Dick Melius said. “He was a heavy equipment operator almost all his life. Worked six days a week, 10 hours a day and more, and yet he raced five, six nights a week.
“He was just so tremendously good at it. He designed and engineered all his own cars – back in those days that’s what they did – and he was so good at it, it just gave him a huge advantage competitively.”
A Slinger native, Melius helped build Slinger Speedway in time for the 1948 season, won the midget title there in 1949, a stock-car championship in ’55 and then five modified crowns from 1958 to ’67, racing against the likes of Billy “The Cat” Johnson, Fuzzy “The Hound” Fassbender and Ken “Tweety Bird” Tlougan.
The infield track at State Fair Park, though, was where he thought he might meet his maker.
“I was qualifying and (when the throttle stuck) ended up going over the fence and over a grader then landed on the nose of the car,” Melius recalled in an interview for Slinger Speedway’s website.
“The frame was bent, and I broke a bunch of fingers. The headers came through the windshield and hit me in the face. That broke my cheekbone and knocked out some teeth.”
After a trip to the hospital, though, Melius reportedly returned to the track that night and signed autographs.
His driving career ended in 1967, when the strain of work and hours in the shop and at the track took their toll.
“For a couple of years, he was back at the same tracks and sharing his talents … setting up cars and getting them to perform better,” Dick Melius said. “Even to some of his greatest competitors.”
Perhaps his most famous pupil, though, was Allison, who was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2011, the hall’s second class. Allison was proud to call “The Mouse” his friend for more than 60 years.
“A legend of Wisconsin scene,” Allison said. “Miles Melius was just a genuine, friendly, outgoing person.”
And a racer of the first order.