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NHRA: Old Rivalry Takes A New Turn
The infamous, 2002 Top Fuel burndown between Doug Herbert and Clay Millican at Maple Grove Raceway sparked a rivalry that earned Herbert his ‘Dougzilla’ nickname.
NHRA Communications  |  Posted December 09, 2009   Charlotte, NC
Clay Millican, left, and Doug Herbert have buried the hatchet on their old feud to work together to promote safe teen driving. (NHRA)
The infamous, 2002 Top Fuel burndown between Doug Herbert and Clay Millican at Maple Grove Raceway sparked a rivalry that earned Herbert his ‘Dougzilla’ nickname.

Although the two Top Fuel veterans had each personally put the incident behind them over the past seven years, an opportunity to create new public service announcements for Herbert’s charity B.R.A.K.E.S. brought them together to bury the hatchet for a good cause.

The venture resulted in a 30-second and 60-second PSA for the nonprofit foundation as well as a seven-minute ‘webisode’ that features both drivers discussing the notorious staging battle. The videos, which can be seen on the B.R.A.K.E.S. website, were several months in the making and were an inspiring project for all involved.

Ray Iddings, Producer and Head of Motorsports Programming for High Five Entertainment, based in Nashville, TN, met Millican through PINKS All Out host Rich Christensen and later asked the six-time Top Fuel champion to host season two of Drag Race High, which he produces. While filming the show in San Diego, Iddings and Millican took the competing high school students to Pomona for the Winternationals.

“I asked to interview Doug because I knew it would be a perfect fit to talk about B.R.A.K.E.S. on Drag Race High, but secretly I knew it was my chance to finally ask about the Clay-Doug rivalry and the birth of Dougzilla,” Iddings laughs. “I’m a drag racing fan first and a producer second, and as a fan, who doesn’t want to know what really happened that day? Why do two rational people decide in an instant, ‘this is where I make my stand, HE can stage first.’”

Everything was normal that morning as Herbert and Millican pulled up to the line to face each other in the first round, until both drivers turned on the pre-stage bulb.

“After they pre-staged, they just sat there,” describes NHRA Chief Starter Rick Stewart. “I waved them both in and they still wouldn’t move. It was a safety issue. Down track, they would have run out of fuel and blown the motors up, so I got out in front of them, backed them up and shut them off. Of course then Doug, Clay and the crews had a little blow up of their own.”

NHRA Announcer Bob Frey remembers the incident well.

“It was a thing of beauty. Well, at least from my perspective it was,” explains Frey. “Not since Garlits and Carbone went at it in Indy in 1971 was there such a battle between a pair of Top Fuel cars. The burndown created one of the better rivalries in the sport. We don’t have many drivers anymore who really don’t like the other guy, but for Doug and Clay, it was real.”

Neither driver spoke much about the burndown in the years following the confrontation so Iddings couldn’t wait to bring it up in his interview with Herbert, and he wasn’t the only one that was curious to know what Herbert though

“When Ray told me he was going to interview Doug about the staging battle my first thoughts were, ‘I can’t wait to hear what Doug has to say,’ says Millican.

Although Iddings had captured both sides of the story he couldn’t fit the footage into Drag Race High and the interviews went unused for a long time. At High Five Entertainment, Iddings and fellow employees jokingly referred to the footage as The Greatest Story Never Told.

At the 2008 U.S. Nationals Herbert, who had lost his sons only seven months before, was paired with Millican for the first round of eliminations and went to Millican’s tow vehicle to wish his fellow competitor good luck.

“As Doug opened the door and shook my hand he noticed my son sitting there and they started talking about motorcross and racing. For a moment I put myself in Doug’s shoes and thought about what it would be like if I didn’t get to have those conversations with my sons anymore,” says Millican. It made me realize that, as important as these races are to us, being mad over staging was silly and from that point on I couldn’t imagine staying mad.”

Millican wanted to get involved with B.R.A.K.E.S. but wasn’t sure how until an employee of the organization approached him at the Thunder Valley Nationals in May and asked if he would be interested in doing a PSA with Herbert.

“When the opportunity came up, I was all over it, I was all in,” Millican says. “I told them about Ray and the interviews he had done. I knew Ray would be the perfect guy to get involved.”







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