Joliet: Clay Millican preview

Chicago-Based Lehman Racing Excited to Race at Home in NHRA Route 66 Nationals

Chicago - May 18, 2004 - Clay Millican of Team 104+ Performance Additives/Lehman Racing, a Chicago-based NHRA Top Fuel drag racing team, will compete in the NHRA Route 66 Nationals in Chicago on May 20-23.

Millican, the three-time IHRA Top Fuel Champion, has been on a hot streak in his last three races, advancing to the Top Fuel finals in the NHRA national events in Houston, Bristol, and Atlanta. Millican defeated several top drivers such as Larry Dixon, Doug Kalitta, Scott Kalitta, and David Grubnic to earn his way to the first three NHRA final rounds of his career. He will attempt to get his first NHRA national event win at the Chicago race.

This is just the second time that the Lehman Racing team has raced in its hometown. In 1998, the team competed in its first-ever NHRA race at Route 66 with the Chicago White Sox dragster, the same year that Chicagoan Peter Lehman started the business after graduating from Northwestern University. Lehman became the youngest Championship team owner in professional motorsports history in 2001, when the then 25-year-old led the team to its first of three consecutive IHRA Top Fuel Championships.

"It'll be nice to race at Route 66 and have an actual idea of what it is like to drive a Top Fuel car this time," said Millican. "The first time we raced at Route 66 (in 1998), I had just received my Top Fuel license and did a reverse burnout...seriously, a reverse burnout. I am really looking forward to going back now that I have a lot more experience."

Millican and Lehman will have a bevy of supporters at the Route 66 Raceway, as 104+ Performance Additives, the team's primary NHRA sponsor and a product of Chicago-based Gold Eagle Company, expects over 100 of its employees to attend the race throughout the weekend to support their team.

"Racing in front of our hometown friends and family, and the employees of Gold Eagle is something that I've been looking forward to since we got acquired our own Top Fuel operation in 2000," said Lehman. "Clay began his Top Fuel career at Route 66 in the Chicago White Sox-sponsored car, so this race is a sentimental homecoming of sorts for our team."

In his past three races, Millican has moved up from 14th to 6th in the NHRA POWERade Top Fuel points standings, an impressive feat considering that he has raced in just five of the seven NHRA national events that have taken place thus far in 2004. Millican and Lehman Racing plan to compete in eight to ten total NHRA races this season, while going for their fourth consecutive Top Fuel Championship in the IHRA with Team Werner.

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