California Car Owner Duke McMillen Dies
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Multiple posts on social media sites Twitter and Facebook have reported the death of legendary California car owner Duke McMillen.
McMillen began his racing career as a car owner in 1963 when he partnered with Hank Cain at Capital Speedway in Sacramento, Calif. He spent years building cars that raced at Capital, including one driven by Gary Patterson in 1965 that won 25 races at Capital and Roseville Speedway.
In 1975 McMillen began building sprint cars and started racing with the Northern Auto Racing Club (NARC), fielding entries for drivers like Patterson, Jimmy Sills, Tim Green, Chuck Gurney, Johnny Anderson, Billy Yon, Jan Opperman, Butch Bahr, Leland McSpadden and Rick Furkel.
In 1985 McMillen partnered with sons Scotty and Jason to compete in NARC with Jason as the driver of a car owned by Jack Gordon. Jason won the NARC Rookie of the Year in 1985, NARC Most Improved Driver in 1986 and the NARC championship in 1987.
In recent years McMillen worked with a multitude of different drivers. In 1992 he partnered with Shane Scott to win the Silver Dollar Speedway 410 sprint-car championship. He also worked with Steve Kent, Tim Kaeding, Jonathan Allard, Peter Murphy, Ronnie Day, Blake Robertson, Sean Becker, Jesse Hockett, Zach Zimmerly and Kyle Larson.
Posted by NSSN Staff
on Jul 5 2012 Filed under Latest Headlines, Other Sprint Cars, Sprints & Midgets.
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