SPECIAL: Rhys Millen Retools

2005 Formula Drift champion Rhys Millen made headlines this week even under doctor ordered bed/couch rest and the discomfort associated with three fractured vertebrae in his neck and two compressed and broken vertebrae in his back.

Last Saturday night he completed a deal to bring his legendary Pontiac GTO out of mothballs to compete in a two car team with his Pontiac Solstice in the 2008 Formula Drift series. And the driver of that car? Daijiro Yoshihara, one of the fastest and most competent drifters in the world. It’s the first super team in drifting and, I believe, the first comprised of two drivers with Formula Drift event wins on their resumé. This could change the face of drifting.

“I needed to hire a driver who was equal to myself if not better,” Rhys told me this week as he recovered from a brutal pounding he took while practicing for a New Year’s Eve stunt that went wildly wrong Dec. 23.

“Dai’s one of those personalities that has a name and he can perform on the track, so I felt he was the perfect fit for the team,” Rhys continued.

He said the deal was conceived before the accident as dominoes fell in another direction. When Rhys’ close friend Tanner Foust won the 2007 Formula D championship and just missed on the Rally America title, his rally sponsor, Rockstar Energy Drink, decided to back Tanner in drifting too. That became a problem for Yoshihara, the Rockstar star in Formula D. Dai technically wasn’t homeless but his ability to keep paying the same mortgage was gone.

“I was aware of this very early on, so I offered up Dai (and the GTO) to Bridgestone,” Rhys explained.

Now, the GTO will be rebranded from its familiar Red Bull livery to Bridgestone when the season starts at Long Beach in April. According to Millen, there may also be an opportunity for a drift exhibition between Rhys and Dai at Bristol before a NASCAR race, but that’s still a dream at the moment.

Yoshihara, who lives in Tokyo and commutes to the U.S., started drifting in 2003 and has been at the top of the game ever since. He was second in points last year in Formula Drift including wins in New Jersey and Seattle and a podium in Irwindale when another win could have earned him the championship. He finished fifth in 2006. His reputation as possibly the fastest in Formula D will be enhanced as the GTO gets an engine upgrade from the 450 horse LS1 package to a 550 horse LS7.

“From what the judges are looking for with big speed and big angle, Dai should be able to give them that with the GTO,” Rhys explained. He said the GTO is getting overhauled after suffering extensive damage at the hands of NASCAR driver and team owner Robby Gordon at the 2006 Mopar Drift vs. Grip extravaganza at Irwindale Speedway.

“That SOB never gave me a thing on (it) and the biggest part of the preparation is repairing the damage he did that night,” Rhys said with a half-smile. “The hit didn’t look like much but it bent everything.”

It also might have cost Rhys a second championship, as he was left with only three days to get the car ready for New Jersey. “We got second in the championship that year and we were leading it when he hit the wall,”
Millen added.

Even as the Yoshihara story continues to reverberate through the drifting world, the larger issue could be whether or not Rhys will be able to answer the bell with his new teammate.

Millen was preparing for what some might call a foolhardy Las Vegas stunt on New Year’s Eve. The plan called for him to backflip an off-road pickup truck on live TV. Even Rhys’ father, Rod Millen, is looking at him a bit askew as Rhys sits at home trying to mend.

“My father is giving me so much pressure on the incident right now,” Rhys admitted. “I’m definitely lucky.” He has no answer for the “Why?” question. Because it seemed like a good idea at the time? That hardly seems enough, though.

Rhys said he put the plans in motion with hundreds of RC car attempts before coming up with a structure for the takeoff ramp and vehicle dynamics. He’d even made 15 cracks (admittedly a poor choice of words!) at the stunt into a pit made of cardboard boxes. The last six of those attempts were successful.

The problem came on the 16th jump when Rhys raised the ramp speed from 32 to 36 mph, hoping to get the truck higher in the air and complete the rotation sooner for a margin of safety on the landing. Instead, the faster speed kept the suspension compressed longer on the ramp. The rebound of the suspension was supposed to start the rotation as the truck went wheels up. The faster speed, though, meant the truck was going just fast enough to clear the ramp before the suspension rebound took place. Hence, no rotation and a real problem.

“The faster speed was just enough to prevent the suspension from responding to the kicker on the ramp,” Rhys explained.

Instead of rotating, the truck went into the air and landed upside down at a 45-degree angle on the pavement, missing the cardboard box pit altogether. All the compressive energy was absorbed in Millen’s back.The issue now is recovery, obviously. Millen said he feels fine but his latest exam revealed inadequate healing and the doctor ordered him back to the couch for complete rest. Another poor report when he’s examined again in a month will mean surgery that will put him on the shelf for at least two months.

“For 15 years I never had anything go wrong. If I crashed, it was the car that got repaired and not my body,” related Rhys, who said some maturation has occurred since the accident. “To me it was very technically based. It wasn’t just a big daredevil act. There was a lot that we needed to figure out and a lot we did figure out. I just never got to perform it the way I was wanting to.”

There’s a lot still on the table with this. Rhys has enormous experience with movie stunts, especially with the Dukes of Hazard, for which he performed many of the high-flying routines in the movie. But now he needs to mend and reassess 2008.

“But if no one has attempted or successfully done it a year from now and my back has healed,” Rhys said of that problematic flip, “and my dad’s still talking to me and my girlfriend’s still talking to me, you might just see me be stupid enough to attempt to do it again…”

You have one lifetime to make a name for yourself, but history will keep your name alive forever. That’s a line Rhys dropped on me in our conversation. It says a lot about the man.

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