It’s safe to say that Bryce Miller, a 25-year-old Hoboken resident, was born to be a racecar driver.
When Miller was 7 years old, his father, Paul, a prominent auto dealer in Morris County with roots in auto racing, put young Bryce behind the wheel of a go-cart and made one simple request: Drive fast.
“It was like my Little League baseball,” Miller said last week. “When most fathers are taking their sons out to the park to have a catch, my Dad was standing on the sidelines of go-cart tracks with a stopwatch in his hands.”
He added, “I did play other sports, like football and hockey. As I got older, I became a skier. But the passion was always with driving.”
Go-cart champ at age 10
Eventually, Miller became so proficient with the go-carts that he was crowned the U.S. Grand National champion in 1992 at the age of 10.
“I think it helped having a father who was as experienced as he was in the sport,” Miller said. “He acted as my coach. It helped me tremendously and accelerated my development in the sport. It gave me a lot of confidence at a very young age. Since I was able to excel pretty early and pretty easily, the progression just continued. A lot of that came with Dad’s presence.”
The need for speed just grew from there.
Even while Miller, a native of New Vernon in Morris County, attended high school at Morristown-Beard School and the University of Vermont, getting a degree in political science and history, he was always planning the next step in his racing career.
“I’m putting that political science degree to good use, huh?” Miller said with a laugh. “I have a lot of friends who live in Washington, D.C. and they’re doing the political thing. I’m racing cars. I can’t get away from it.”
Formula One and Indy
While most American motor sport enthusiasts naturally gravitate toward either NASCAR or Indy car racing, Miller found himself fascinated with the Formula One style of road racing found predominately in Europe.
“I always dreamed about being a Formula One superstar, like Mika Häkkinen or Ayrton Senna,” Miller said. “When I was very young, my godfather took me to a race in Montreal and I got to go into the pits and see the cars close up, meet the drivers. I kind of went in that direction from then on.”
Plus, when Miller was young, there was a huge divide between the people who ran the Indy Car circuit, namely CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) and IRL (Indy Racing League).
“I probably would have gotten into doing Indy Cars if it wasn’t for that split back then,” Miller said.
In fact, after graduating from the University of Vermont, Miller headed to Europe to pursue his dream of becoming a Formula One road racer.
“I spent a year in Germany and I drove in the F-3 Series [basically the equivalent of minor league baseball for Formula One drivers] for a while,” Miller said. “But there wasn’t a welcoming environment for American drivers over there. It changed my philosophy and I came home.”
With his father’s assistance, Miller got involved with Porsche and started racing for them.
“That’s blossomed into what I have today,” Miller said.
Clinched a championship
Miller, along with teammate Dirk Werner, raced for the Farnbacher Loles in the 2007 Grand-Am Rolex GT road racing series this season and recently clinched the team championship with Werner.
Individually, Miller finished in third place among the drivers and was second in the Rookie of the Year standings. If it weren’t for the fact that Miller had to drive a different car in the first race of the Rolex GT series, Miller might have captured the individual driver’s championship as well.
Miller won the title at the Virginia International Raceway and placed in 10 of 13 races this season.
Needless to say, Miller is a driver whose star is on the rise. His education is behind him and now he can concentrate on accelerating his career as a race car driver.
After clinching the title last month, Miller has signed on with The Racers Group (TRG) to race in the Grand-Am Rolex GT series in 2008.
The spot with the prestigious racing team opened up when TRG’s champion driver Andy Lally announced that he was making the shift to NASCAR for the coming season.
TRG owner Kevin Buckler acted fast to sign Miller to a contract.
“I am extremely happy to have Bryce as part of our TRG family for the 2008 season,” Buckler said. “I have watched him closely for over two years and I have to say that he has done just an outstanding job in all aspects of his professional driver development. He is committed, experienced, fit and fast, and understands the position he is about to assume with our team.
Added Buckler, “With Andy Lally moving on to our NASCAR program and Bryce occupying the lead role in our car No. 66, Bryce will definitely have some big shoes to fill. But I know he is going to do great. We are all behind him 100 percent.”
“I’m very excited and honored to be part of TRG’s team,” Miller said. “I like to think that it’s going to give me the opportunity to continue to grow. It’s just being in the right place at the right time.”
Miller was asked if he had aspirations of joining the extremely popular NASCAR circuit one day.
“I’m not crazy over it,” Miller said. “My passion is road racing, not the ovals. But I’d have to consider it if the offer came around. Right now, this is a good opportunity for me to be part of The Racers Group.”
No racing in Hoboken
Miller has been living in Hoboken for the last 18 months and resides there with his girlfriend, Jill.
“I had a lot of good times visiting friends in Hoboken,” Miller said. “I didn’t want to live in New York City, because I didn’t have enough elbow room. But we love it in Hoboken. It’s a blast.”
Miller trains his cars regularly at Lime Rock in Connecticut, but beginning in 2008, he’ll have a home track in Millville, N.J. in the southern part of the state near Atlantic City. That road race facility is under construction and should be done in time for the racing series in the spring.
“I’m really psyched about that,” Miller said. “It’s going to be great to test close to home.”
In the meantime, Miller has been busy testing cars in Sonoma, Calif. to get ready for the 24 Hours of Daytona on Jan. 28, the first event that he will race for TRG in a new Porsche 2008 GT3.
“We’re testing new cars and new tires,” Miller said. “We’ll get it all sorted out before the new season begins in January. I’ll have some time off, but then it’s time to get ready for the 2008 season. I’m really looking forward to the new season. I’ll have a new team and a new leadership role. I just hope I can get another championship.”
Miller was asked if he will prepare for the coming season by driving through the streets of Hoboken.
“Nah, there’s too much traffic,” Miller laughed. “This year has been really almost surreal for me. This was my first full year of racing and for us to pull off something like winning the Rolex series championship is almost too unreal for words. It’s pretty surreal.”
For more information about Bryce Miller and his racing efforts, log onto www.brycemiller.net Jim Hague can be reached via e-mail at either OGSMAR@aol.com or jhague@hudsonreporter.com