BRENTON MILLER
THE mad people that choose to take on Drag Challenge often travel thousands of kilometres to be a part of the circus, but not many of those are game enough to drive their race cars to and from the event. Brenton Miller is one of those madmen, piloting his little Chrysler Centura on a 9000km round trip from Earlville, Queensland to participate in DC 2018, earning him the Longest Distance Driven trophy.
Brenton is one of 18 soldiers who took on the first DC in 2014, and having missed a few rodeos since his last appearance in 2015, he was determined to represent the Centura name this year. He doesn’t even own a tow vehicle, let alone a trailer, priding himself on the ability to drive his cars to and from every event he goes to.
In place of his blown 1Uz-powered Centura this year was a 265 Hemi six-powered ’75 model, which he finished just hours before he left for the long drive down to Melbourne for the start of DC. “I quickly packed the car and started heading for Melbourne, and I only got around 10 hours of sleep for the whole drive down,” Brenton said.
Because he rushed to get the car done, Brenton didn’t get a chance to get the Autronic EFI management tuned to make the most of the six-banger. Up behind the donk is a single-rail four-speed manual and a Borgwarner 31-spline diff with 3.7:1 gears.
Despite the new gear being totally untested in the plucky Centura, Brenton made it through the week of DC with no issues, running a PB of 13.56@100mph in the Pacemaker Radial Aspirated class.
“I know it’s not the fastest car out there; I just come to be a part of the event and meet all the awesome people and have a good time,” he said.
Brenton’s not too sure if he’ll make the next DC event, but he plans on finishing off his other 1Uz-powered Centura and having another run at DC in the near future.