A major topic of conversation during the 2024 racing series was the emergence of the High Limit Racing series as a viable threat to the supremacy of the World of Outlaws in the winged sprint car world.
There are no signs that either group lacks the resolve to continue. Additionally, the United States Auto Club continues to occupy a unique niche in the sprint car universe despite the annual predictions of the group’s imminent demise.
It is a crazy world where many seemingly vie for a piece of a racing pie that appears to be too small to divvy up. Will the growth of live streaming fuel an increased demand for this product? It appears industry leaders are banking on this possibility.
While the upper limit of growth remains unknown, from a historical perspective many point to the advent of the World of Outlaws as the demarcation point where sprint car racing became a national phenomenon like never before.
Within that perspective Ted Johnson is hailed as a visionary, with drivers such as Steve Kinser, Doug Wolfgang, Sammy Swindell, Rick Ferkel, Bobby Allen and Ron Shuman viewed as among the key disciples who spread the gospel of the sport.
Yet, in any retrospective analysis of history critical moments and influential figures can be easily overlooked. Such is the case with Pennsylvania’s Clarence Harmon “Bud” Miller. It can easily be argued that Miller, who launched the All Star Circuit of Champions, established the blueprint that was successfully duplicated by others.
Miller was born in Greenville, Pa., in September 1927 to parents Charles Augustus and Mary Alberta Miller. Charles was a paymaster for the lucrative Bessmer and Lake Erie Railroad, and both sides of the family had deep roots in the region.
Upon graduation from high school, Bud enrolled in nearby Theil College but was called to duty shortly thereafter. By 1946 he was a member of the 5th Air Force and serving in the control tower at Chitose, Hokkaido in Northern Japan.
His time in California pre and post-deployment was well spent. He rubbed elbows with the likes of Sam Hanks and Duane Carter Sr. and delved even deeper into the world of auto racing. After he had shed the clothes Uncle Sam had assigned him, he still had a reason to venture back to the left coast.
An older brother established a television antenna manufacturing business in California and in the early 1950s Miller would help during the winter months. Now more formally involved in racing, he quickly demonstrated the penchant for meeting the right people. With an agile mind he seized upon every opportunity he could to learn more about the industry.
“When I was working for my brother, I would meet with Maury Powell who was J. C Agajanian’s publicity guy,” he recalled. “I would go over on Saturday afternoon and we would exchange ideas. I tried to see what other race tracks were doing.”
His inquisitiveness was a product of his early experiences. After his discharge in 1947 his passion for racing took many forms. He immediately began traveling throughout the region with midget racer Art Holbrook. The man known as the Flying Farmer made plenty of noise in his potent Ford V8-60 and Ferguson powered mount.
In 1949 and 1950, Miller travelled south to Ft. Lauderdale/Davie Speedway to help Duane Carter who was competing successfully in a midget. Closer to home he began working at Sharon Speedway in 1951 and served in a host of capacities.
“I started out as their pit steward,” he said. “Then I was the flagman, the announcer and then moved into publicity and promotions.”
His promotional skills were soon in demand throughout the Keystone State and he found work at Mercer Raceway Park, Pulaski Speedway and in Erie.
Miller developed an expertise in kitchen design, and in his words “attended about a dozen design schools.” It proved to be a lucrative enterprise, but it pulled him away from day-to-day racing operations. However, the speed bug wasn’t entirely out of his system.
With his business in good standing, he focused his attention on one big idea. He decided to build a superspeedway near the Youngstown, Ohio, airport. This wasn’t a mere pipedream. Investors included John Cooper, a man who would ultimately serve as the President of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Daytona Int’l Speedway, and Bud’s good friend Paul Waite a Howard Johnson restaurant magnate and the owner of hotel properties on both coasts.
Miller also leaned on his old friend and associate Chris Economaki. Miller developed a relationship with Economaki in part due to his years as a National Speed Sport News photographer and public relations professional. He also knew that Chris had a strong bond with NASCAR’s Bill France and recognized how vital that was to the project.
“Bill (France) was going to give us a good date, and we hired the same contractor that Harold Brasington had used at Darlington,” he said. “And we were all set to go.”
All that remained was securing the property for the project. “We had four people we were buying land from,” Miller said. “We gave deposits to three of them had a written contract. Two of the people were bachelor brothers in their 70s, and one you couldn’t talk to. It was 1970 and the land was appraised at $43,000 and we offered them $60,000. They were complaining that the planes made too much noise, so we had our checkbooks out. We were ready to take the deed down to their family attorney. It was a done deal.”
Plans for a groundbreaking ceremony were already underway when one of the brothers balked. In desperation the team made a final pitch.
“We offered them $70,000 and told them they could still live on their farm with eight acres and be tax and rent free for the rest of their lives,” he recalled, “and they turned it down.”
Larry Mattingly made his mark in public relations, but at the time he was a student at Clarion College and doing some work for National Speed Sport News. He had kept a close eye on these developments and could empathize with Miller and his associates.
“The proposed track was in a good location,” he said. “It would have worked.”
In the end, it is hard to imagine that a failed superspeedway project changed the face of sprint car racing, but in so many ways that is exactly what happened. There was a formidable team in place with resources at their disposal, but no immediate direction.
“John Cooper, Paul Waite and I sat down at a table at a restaurant,” Miller recalled, “and Economaki said, ‘Now what do you want to do?’ Paul wanted to buy another speedway, but I said I wanted to save sprint car racing.”
Miller’s statement may seem odd today, but his sentiment was based on fact.
“The first track to run weekly sprint cars in the area was Sharon Speedway in 1961 and by the end of the 1960s everyone was getting into it,” Miller said. “However, by 1970 sprint cars were getting expensive and in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia about 40 tracks had dropped sprint cars or only raced them one or two times a year.”
Not surprisingly, Economaki got straight to the point. He wondered how Miller planned to pull off this minor miracle. Unfazed, Bud said, “I plan to run a race every Wednesday and pay $1,000 to win.”
It was an astronomical sum for the times. The plan to run midweek was well thought out. Miller noted that businesses were closed, and there would be no competition from other area tracks. Given this, he had the chance to lure the biggest names of the sport at the time to gather in one place. It was there that the All Star Circuit of Champions was born.
Miller leased 11 race tracks in 1970, and at the very least he knew he could count on some of the toughest drivers from the region to sign in.
“Yes, Central Pennsylvania was strong,” Larry Mattingly noted. “But Western Pennsylvania also had a strong circuit with guys like Gus Linder, Bobby Adamson, Lou Blaney and Hank Jacoby. Those were among the top sprint car drivers in the country, and everyone forgets them.”
To get local heroes and some of the top travelers on one bill was a significant achievement.
“It was the first time someone brought all of these guys together,” Mattingly said. “Where before at each track you were never sure who you were going to get. Bud had made a deal with Jan Opperman and now you knew these bigger name guys were going to come in. You had Opperman, and then Kenny Weld, Bobby Allen, and Lee Osborne would drop in, and you got the local guys too. It was very interesting. It was the foundation of the idea of getting all of these guys who liked to travel together and give them an opportunity to run for a championship.”
The concept was novel in many ways. The feature events were 100 laps long with a 10-position invert. The format led some crafty veterans such as Opperman to approach qualifications strategically. Opperman won the first event on June 10, 1970, at Canfield Speedway. Ralph Quarterson scored wins at Sharon and Lernerville Speedway on the way to the championship, with Lee Osborne, Bobby Adamson, Lou Blaney, Billy Cassella and Bobby Allen also scoring victories.
While the series was a success, the original plan was for this to be a one-time experience. However, Miller’s telephone kept ringing, and by 1973 he was willing to try something even more audacious. Now he was prepared to take his program across the country.
This time the All Stars would function as a pure sanctioning body, and the quest was to tie together some of the most important races in the discipline. Mattingly, who was working at Heidelberg Speedway, was willing to devote time to the All Stars public relations, while Miller rolled up his sleeves and tried to breathe life into his new project.
“I flew out to Indy to meet with USAC and I talked to them about letting their drivers race with us (USAC had an exclusivity clause) and many did,” Miller said. “Then I flew to California and Phoenix to line up drivers and tracks, and I met with Al Sweeney of the IMCA in Tampa. 1973 was our big year. We had all the top tracks in the country. We had 322 drivers race with us and at Knoxville (Knoxville Nationals) and Phoenix (Western World Championship at Manzanita) we had 125 drivers at each of them.”
In the end, 11 races were staged with Jan Opperman edging Ralph Parkinson for the overall championship. Of the winners, Opperman, Bobby Allen, Kenny Weld, Steve Smith and Earl Wagner are National Sprint Car Hall of Fame inductees.
Interest was still keen in 1974 but matters out of Miller’s control brought things to a halt. A nationwide gas crisis was the lead story of 1974, and from there the economy stumbled. Once again it was time to put racing on the backburner.
Further west, and despite the obstacles, in 1974 Wayne County Speedway promoter Welman Lehmann laid the groundwork for what became the All Star Super Sprints. Working with Eldora’s powerful Earl Baltes, a robust slate of races was offered in 1975 and 1976 with activities based largely in Ohio. It wasn’t long before Lehmann faced the dilemmas that plagued Bud Miller. The very success of this venture took too much of his time.
What Miller and Lehmann’s efforts demonstrated was that there was a demand for the product they were offering.
In the late 1970s the World of Outlaws was in its infancy, but it providde an opportunity for ambitious drivers and teams to hit the road and try to make a little cash. No one could predict what the Outlaws would become, and some felt there was still a void for those drivers who had a case of wanderlust.
Ohio’s Bert Emick was a well-known track photographer and he had talked with drivers such as Rick Ferkel about organizing a traveling series close to his home base. Convinced this might work, in 1979 Emick and fellow photographer and racing fan Jerry Clum organized the Midwest Outlaw Super Series.
In 1979 Emick and Clum presented five races in September with Dub May claiming the title. One year later the series expanded 22 dates, with Bobby Allen emerging as the champion. Then the group was thrown a curveball. A rival stepped in to commandeer the series and after a contentious court battle Emick and Clum lost the rights to the MOSS name.
Despondent at first, they still felt there was a need for a replacement series. It turns out they weren’t alone.
Miller had fought the urge to devote time to another racing adventure, but one simple conversation got him back into the game. Legendary Williams Grove and East Coast promoter Jack Gunn asked if Miller planned to attend the 1979 National Open at the Grove. He did, and little did he know that Gunn was already scheming.
When Gunn spotted Miller in the credential line he summoned him to his office.
“He brought me in and locked the door and he told me that I needed to get the All Stars back together again,” Miller explained. “I told him I didn’t have the time, but he said, ‘Listen, if you put them back together, I will take care of the Eastern Pennsylvania tracks, and we’ll get Jean Lynch to take care of the Western Pennsylvania.’”
Things took off from there in a fashion no one could have anticipated. An informal group began to meet, and Miller’s expertise was in high demand. As Gunn indicated Lynch was interested, and also in the thick of it was Wellman Lehmann.
“We got together in Lehmann’s house and started laying out the races,” Miller said. “And then Earl Baltes called, and he wanted more races.”
Now there was a whole lot more to manage and more territory to cover. The key players involved in the early planning served as the Board of Directors of the new group. There was just one problem.
Past experience indicated that someone needed to travel to all of the events. Miller and Lehmann had significant involvements outside of racing, and Baltes was involved with more than one race track. Bert and Brigitte Emick entered the picture. What was once old was new again. By 1981, the All Star Circuit of Champions was sanctioning sprint car and late model races.
Miller founded the All Star Circuit of Champions, was instrumental in the club’s rebirth, and much later he secured The Club as an important series sponsor. He was there when Earl Baltes posed the idea of what became Ohio Sprint Speedweek.
In the summer of 2002, the series passed from the Emicks to Guy Webb, who remained at the helm for a dozen years. Tony Stewart purchased the club in January 2015, and then at the end of 2023, High Limit Racing acquired the All Star Circuit of Champions and the series was put to rest. Only days ago, it was announced the series will return in 2025.
Miller, who calls Hermitage, Pa., home is a vibrant 97 years old. He can speak about the days of Deb Snyder and Sam Hanks as well as the exploits of today’s stars. He laments that some of the best to ever race in his region, men like Steve Ungar and Mack Clingon fail to get the recognition they deserve. Maybe the same can be said for Bud Miller.
When he thinks about his old friend, Mattingly notes, “It was his idea to form a traveling outlaw circuit, and he doesn’t get credit for it. The fact that he isn’t in the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame is a crime.”
Over five decades ago Bud Miller took a bold and unexpected step. When his superspeedway project slipped through his grasp, he rebounded by launching a traveling sprint car series that showcased the talents of some of the best sprint car drivers in the land.
Beyond this, he established a model that was used by others to reshape the direction and scope of the sport.