GIBSONTON, Fla. (Jan. 25) — Tyler Millwood admits that he’s not a huge fan of points racing. But entering this weekend’s three-night Rogers-Dabbs Performance Parts Crate Racin’ USA Winter Shootout Series Florida Winternationals opener Thursday night at East Bay Raceway Park, there he was just 32 points behind leader Matt Henderson of Loudon, Tenn., and 30 points behind second-place Will Roland of Jasper, Ga., in the miniseries points standings.
“It’s really not my thing, but if I got a chance to win the race, I'm blasting it and [the car is] liable to come home in a box,” said Millwood. “I’d rather get the win. That’s my only thing about points racing. Other than destroying the car at Volusia Speedway Park last weekend and having to rebuild it, those first two weekends (Talladega Short Trackand Volusia Speedway Park) on the Winter Shootout Series have been pretty good.
“Another thing I don't like about points racing…I don't like being tied to a racetrack I don't want to have to go to," Millwood said. "That's my other big thing about that. But I mean, points racing is cool. It gets you around your competitors and you race with the same base, so that's fun.”
With a runner-up finish in the Crate Racin’ USA Winter Shootout Series opener during the 33rd annual Ice Bowl at Talladega Short Track in Eastaboga, Ala., on Jan. 6, and a sixth-place effort during the fifth annual Sunshine Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., on Jan. 18, Millwood headed into the opening week of East Bay’s Winternationals in fine position, despite being only somewhat satisfied with his team’s Rocket chassis.
Millwood had faced troubles during preliminary action, but has proven to shine come feature time. The 32-year-old from Kingston, Ga., has struggled to get his car to rotate when the track is fast—or heavy and tacky—in the early evening where there’s still a lot of moisture in the surface. But in feature events, Millwood has been able to work his way to the front.
At Talladega Short Track, he finished second after starting seventh. At Volusia he took a provisional to start the $10,000-to-win main event, started 27th and gained a whopping 21 positions.
“(We are) trying to make our race car turn in and we still haven't accomplished that yet,” said Millwood as he stood with crewman Lance Bracewell waiting to enter East Bay’s pit area on Thursday. “I’ve made a couple gains. We still feel good about our car. We need (the track) to slow down a bit for our race car to be what we need. I don’t need it to be wide open all night, cause if it’s wide open all night, I can’t really turn and I’m tight. But when it slows down a good second or so, my race car likes it, and I can steer better. That’s when we get good.”
On Thursday at East Bay—while facing 90 other competitors in a huge field on entries—Millwood’s assessment was spot on.
He qualified 19th in a 23-car group of Chevrolet Performance Circle Track Engines-powered cars, but pieced together a dazzling effort to rally from 18th to third in his 25-lap qualifying feature. He actually held the runner-up spot for 11 laps before Henderson, who improved nine positions himself, snuck by with two laps remaining to grab second.
“At the end of the night, we always got a good feature car and it's just a product of being tight early,” Millwood said. “Everything we've thrown at the car in two days of testing, we’re still in the same boat. But it is what it is. We know we’ve got a good feature car. I told them [Wednesday] night, I said I'm content with starting sixth in the heat knowing that I ain't got the best qualifying car in the field. I know come feature time if I just got a starting spot, we're alright.”
Millwood admitted that starting well in the back, especially in a short 25-lap race like Thursday’s preliminary feature, wasn’t ideal. Yet he also knows that taking a glass-half-full approach, it can have its advantages.
“You’ve got to dodge a lot of darts, I guess you can say, in the process of starting deep in a Crate Late Model feature,” he said. “It helps in some ways, because it pushes me to run different lines. It makes me move. The only bad thing is that around the end of the race or with 10 [laps] to go, the rest of the guys up front got a little better tires than me because they hadn't had to beat through the whole field.
“When we can get a good starting spot, I feel like we got one of the best cars in the country right now — Crate-wise at least.”
The second night of preliminary action for the Rogers-Dabbs Performance Parts Crate Racin’ USA Winter Shootout Series continues on Friday with another round of hot-lap qualifying and four more $1,000-to-win, 25-lap preliminary features. The Adam Stewart-directed tour wraps up its stint at the famed “Clay by the Bay” on Saturday, Jan. 27, with a $5,000-to-win main event.
The nine-date miniseries concludes Feb. 17 with a $10,000-to-win program at Southern Raceway in Milton, Fla.