Description
By: Gordon Eliot White .
Acknowledgements by the Author
In doing the research for my four earlier books, Offenhauser, The Indianapolis Cars of Frank Kurtis, KURTIS-KRAFT, and Lost Race Tracks, I had the help of literally scores of individuals going back over many years. This book is different. Although I acknowledge the advice and education I have gotten over the years from a great many people, this book owes its existence to a mere handful. Chuck Davis, Jim Etter, Dave Uihlein, Buck Boudeman, and Dean and Don Butler were of great help, but two people made this book possible. The late Mark L. Dees and the late Griffith Borgeson preserved the memory of Harry A. Miller when he was all but forgotten. Mark's heirs bequeathed to me his collection of
Miller photographs and they and the late Bob Sutherland made me the archivist of the surviving Miller drawings, most done by that incomparable engineer and draftsman, Leo W. Goossen. I added to my knowledge of things Miller by the research for my 1996 Offenhauser book and, over the intervening eight years, other material has come to light that I have incorporated here. Thanks too, to Ron McQueeney at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for permission to use old photographs to which the Speedway holds the copyright. I want also to recognize Harold Peters who is helping carry on the Miller tradition through a web site, http://www.milleroffy.com. All of the original drawings reproduced here are the property of the Leo Goossen Archive, of which I am the curator. Because of their age, some of these drawings have become faded and stained, but nonetheless I believe they are worthy of being published.
Both Mark's and Griff's Miller books are now out of print, although Griff's Golden Age of the American Racing Car has been re-issued. This book cannot replace either Mark's tour de force Miller Dynasty nor Griff's much smaller Miller, but I hope that it will bring the story of Harry Miller, his high art and his broad influence on powerful American machinery, to the attention of many readers who may not have known of them.
