NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Clay Millican enjoyed a busy but pleasant offseason before beginning preseason testing at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The Parts Plus Top Fuel team spent its offseason rewiring the entire dragster and reorganizing its trailer, a pair of processes Millican hopes will allow for smoother race days. 

"We essentially laid out the entire wiring system and put the entire car back together," said Millican. "Then we fired the car up yesterday just to make sure everything was working right and that sets us up for making our first runs today."

The team doesn't plan on running past half-track between Wednesday and Saturday; crew chief Mike Kloeber will get all the data he needs by the 660-foot mark. Millican's team is checking out clutch discs and Goodyear tires, the former was a stumbling block for its success in 2019. That's something to sort out as it heads into the second year of Millican and Kloeber's repairing. 

"Right now we're planning for when this batch of clutch discs goes away," said Millican. "We did a better job of working with Bonifante (Clutch) this offseason so that we can work in this new batch of clutch discs in with what we already have. That way we don't get what we had last year, where we ran out and had to start over from scratch."

Millican will also test Goodyear tires in Las Vegas, something he has done for nearly his entire career -- dating back to his IHRA days. That involves crew chief Kloeber working with Goodyear technicians, taking inventory of a variety of tire compounds and then giving feedback on those tires at the end of the week. 

"I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of good crew chiefs over the year and I've been lucky to have that relationship last a long time," said Millican.