Pioneer, builder, driver, official

Few were more responsible for the rise of hot rodding, drag racing and off-roading than Danish-born Akton Miller. Miller’s family migrated to Whittier, CA, where he worked in the Nixon family store alongside the future president as a teenager. In the ‘30s, he followed brothers Zeke and Lawrence to the dry lakes and Bonneville. Miller and inductee Wally Parks were co-founders of the Road Runners car club, which merged with others to form the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA); Miller served twice as its president. When Parks founded the NHRA, Miller was his vice president. The WWII vet excelled at LSR and off-road events, collecting hundreds of records at Bonneville and nine class championships at Pikes Peak in self-built machinery. Earlier, he drove his homebuilt T-roadster to 8^th and 5^th in the 1953 and ’54 Carerra Panamerica against the big factory teams and won his class in the first Baja 1000 (1967). Miller was inducted into the Dry Lakes Racing Hall of Fame in 1996 and Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2005.