Going out on your own, starting a career is a rite of passage for just about everybody, including Kenny Miller. That led to his first career 600 sprint win as a car owner, coming at Action Track USA last week.
Kenny’s father, Ken, sold off the 600 sprints they had in 2019 to help Kenny go race in USAC East Coast Sprint Cars. Now with a college degree in hand and a job as a control engineer, Kenny decided to return to 600s in 2023.
“My dad said, ‘You have a job — buy your own car and take on the responsibility,’” Kenny, of Morgantown, Pennsylvania, said. “He still owns my USAC cars, but he passed the micro-owner torch to me.”
Kenny bought a Hyper Racing micro. The experience as a car owner changed his perspective.
“I like to think that being a car owner hasn’t affected my driving,” said Kenny. “At the same time, I have to admit I think about how much it will cost to fix the car if I wreck it — more so than I did in the years I did not have a stake in the car.”
Those thoughts, however, don’t come while in the race car.
“I don’t think about the what-ifs while I am on the track,” Kenny said. “I do so more when I look back on the night. Knock on wood, I haven’t crashed this season.”
Kenny Miller cast those concerns aside en route to his victory at Action Track USA. It was his first win in six years at the Kutztown, Pennsylvania, dirt oval.
“It felt so good to win there again,” Kenny said. “All of the drivers there are competitive and fast. It felt rewarding to win. Dad and I put a lot of work into getting back to where we were. The excitement carried on for two or three days.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
