Leonard Miller
Author
"Silent Thunder"

"The ability to race at the limit of his or her skills without fearing that God will snatch them up to heaven on the third turn."

Debbie Speicher is often the voice of Zoomster.com during NASCAR teleconferences. Here Speicher steps up her routine to a full one-on-one phone interview with racer and writer Leonard Miller. Miller's book "Silent Thunder" is about being an African-American in the high dollar motorsports world. Miller shares with us some of his fertile thoughts and fond memories.

Questions by Dwight Drum and Debbie Speicher

Web work by Gary Larsen

Deb: How long did it take you to write " Silent Thunder"?

Leonard: "It took me a year to write "Silent Thunder", by getting up at four a.m. in the morning. I'd write on the old yellow pads, like the old school authors. I would write until about eight in the morning, then go off to work or race or whatever, but that's how I did it. Early in the morning when the thoughts came to me fast. The new kids today can get on the word processor or the PC and they go a hundred miles an hour but being from the old school, I can't write as fast as my thoughts are. I came from the generation where you had to put your thoughts together properly, and then you wrote it down on the old yellow pad. From writing information down, you don't scratch it out...If you do scratch it out, you have to keep re-writing and re-writing. You would be five years writing a book. So that was fortunate for me."

Deb: What do you like best about racing?

Leonard: "My thing about racing is the excitement and trying to win against other people and their skills and resources they have. Being a minority, or being from the black community, I like to do the impossible feat of winning where people think we can't win."

Deb: When did you realize you could be a race car driver?

Leonard: I started out in 1939, I was five years old. My mother worked as a cook on a blue blood Mainline Philadelphia Estate in Wayne, Pennsylvania. We lived on the estate. They had exotic cars, and they would talk about Indy 500. These rich people would put their money together, and would put a car into the 500. So living on the Estate and hearing this everyday. I was one of the service children that learned about racing by osmosis. I learned it by just being around it. The other way is when they had great parades. Before World War II they had Memorial Day parades with exotic Duesnbergs, Auburns, Cords, all of these fancy cars that were brilliant yellows, blues and blacks and I said That's what I like. I like to be around these cars. That's what really got me started. I just got right in it."

Deb: How did you get started in racing?

Leonard: "At the end of World War II as I was becoming a teenager, the hot rod craze came in. In the book, the first picture in the book is my 1940 Ford Club Coupe Convertible. I learned working on that car myself and then that led to street racing and going down South racing against one of the big Southerners that had a 1949 Ford. Good ole boys, and I beat him! That was the talk of Caroline County, Va. for 10 years in the black community. So, that's how I started off driving and then I went from there to drag racing, because I didn't have the money with a young family. Stock car racing would tear up cars. I didn't have the help. In the black community you don't have the resources of neighbors that can paint, or can fix rear ends, or know carburetion. You usually do it yourself. That includes Wendell Scott, the great stock car racer, and that includes Rajo Jack and many of the famous black racers that we've had since the dawn of racing. We just don't have the resources. Where I was raised, which is primarily in the white community in the suburbs of Philadelphia, I had a friend Butch Clappsaddle, he was the" Fonzy" of the high school. No one liked him, but he and I got along fine. I was a good student in school. He helped me and some of his friends would work with me and one black fellow named Buddy Sparrow ( who's in the book) was the only black kid that would work and understand cars like I did and that's how I got started. I've always had limited resources in terms of the overall racing picture."

Deb: What's inside a good driver that's not in most of us?

Leonard: "The ability to race at the limit of his or her skills without fearing that God will snatch them up to heaven on the third turn. You have to be aggressive, smooth and have the ability to understand what a racing line is. Race car drivers have to drive on apexes like a geometric line. To drive with emotion, to loose sight of your line kills people or gets people in trouble. Most of the people become very emotional, they're not aggressive at the right time and they're trying to win the race in the first lap. If you do all those things, you just can't be a race car driver. There's no way. You'll tear up equipment and kill yourself."

Deb: What would you most like the media to know about your life in racing?

Leonard: "That blacks have been out racing since 1910 and I have been involved with racing before World War II as a small tot. The media today is getting caught up in the last two or three years, especially in NASCAR, like blacks have just started racing started racing three or four years ago. The black racing history is lost. That's why I wrote "Silent Thunder" to show what I have encountered and the successes and failures I've had in motorsports. This is the first book ever in the history of racing written by a black man. The black mans a spirit...That's because people just think that a black person comes out to the racetrack and gets in a race car and they don't know that person. They don't know what they go through. The other thing, it's so hard for a black driver to obtain sponsorship, that the black drivers feed into the myth themselves. A black driver will be interviewed and they'll say.' Well how hard was it for you to get to NASCAR? Oh it was OK. I'm a driver, I just happen to be black, but I'm a driver first. They'll ask Did you have any problems at the track today? No, I didn't have any problems at the track today.' Maybe 10 people called them the "N" word or an official would do something (which I've been through) that they wouldn't do toward a white racing team. So they try to smother it themselves and go along with it, hoping by being nice and being like a pet that they will get sponsorship, but that doesn't work."

Deb: Do you have a favorite moment in racing?

Leonard: "That was July 7,2001. We were racing with Dr. Pepper Racing late model stock. We were racing in Jacksonville, N.C., and Morty Buckles was our driver. Morty came into the track never saw the track before never practiced there and went out and won the race. That was a great moment, as far as the winning was concerned, but what happened surrounding the race was not to good. That was a joy to see in stock car racing that we could win without seeing the track but we saw more Rebel flags then I've ever seen in my life. I saw one so big I thought it was like one flown in front of a car dealership."

Deb: Can you describe the drive within you?

Leonard: "The drive within me is the same as the drive Sir Hilary had in climbing Mt. Everest. There's a mountain there. Blacks aren't respected in racing at all. I want to get respect for the black racing community and there's a mountain to climb and I'm determined to climb that mountain at all costs, to show that we can compete in the sport."

Deb: "And I think your going to do just that with your book."

Deb: "What's the difference between a good driver and a great driver?

Leonard: "A great driver will drive deeper into the turns and will go all the way. He'll take the car in where angels fear to tread on the track. The other difference is a great driver can be shot at before he goes to track, he can be served divorce papers before he races, someone can repossess his car and he will still take that car to the tenth degree. He will also communicate with his team in a wonderful way and the team will support him in a wonderful way and the only thing that will deny him is death."

Deb: Does your competitive spirit change over time?

Leonard:" No. and on that point. "Silent Thunder" is only 40 percent of my life. I have another 60 percent that people have found very interesting. I have to always fight from a disadvantage and I still have the same fire I've always had since I've gone into racing, because I haven't satisfied my ultimate goals of winning the Daytona 500 or winning the Indy 500, or winning some major races like Roger Penske wins."

Deb: Can you define your best goals now?

Leonard: "My immediate goals and my son Lenny's goals as Miller Racing Group is to get a new black driver that we have found outside of the system, outside of what you would ordinarily know and take that person to the Indy 500 and Daytona 500. I've got the driver. I'm not putting you on. I've found the driver, but we need to raise another four to eight million dollars to do it. It's money holding us back. I have to say to you for the first time, we do have a major black corporation up and coming that has put money behind us, but we need more corporate sponsorship to do it properly."

Deb: Maybe you'll get that through this book...do you think?

Leonard: "I hope so Debbie. If the people read the book and get an understanding of what's really in the book then they should do it, but if they look at the book and resist it or ignore the message in the book then we'll have trouble."

Deb: I think it should. I'm finding that it's becoming a better world then back when you started on the tracks of North Carolina with the flags. Those were not good days. I think we are becoming more together don't you think?

Leonard: "Yes, it's getting better but we still want to win."

Deb: If you could change anything in your past in relation to racing, what would that be?

Leonard: "One of the things I would change is that I let down Wendell Scott. I could of helped make Wendell Scott a millionaire, when he offered me 25 percent of the movie script "Greased Lighting" I had $800, he wanted $3,000. Instead of borrowing the money from relatives or whatever, I was so short sided in my own racing goals. You're always short money when you're racing. I didn't do it and I hurt him. That bothers me. It's in the book. It has bothered me for about ten years. I think of all the things that I've gotten involved in and that I didn't do right. That bothered me more then anything because I do think of my fellow man and I let him down big time. He's gone now. It bothered me for years. We'd talk about it and he'd say 'Miller. You let me down.' Anything else like we never get enough sponsorship I don't think I could change because the events were so big and so incomprehensive that we had to face. "

Deb: What would you most like fans to know about you?

Leonard: "I'd like the fans to know we're good folk. We appreciate all the fans and in terms of supporting the team we're not reversed racists. We're no militants. We want the support of all the fans that are in the stands."

Deb: On a foggy morning sometimes a shaft of sunlight brightens a path. Has this kind of brightness ever happened to you in racing?

Leonard: "No. The only time on a morning I remember that kind of thing happening was at Watkins Glenn, N.Y. It was a foggy morning, the rain had stopped but we couldn't race. It was wet and there was flooding. When the sun came out down through the clouds it shown on some caskets that rose up out of the grave yard in front of the motel. It was a panic. I felt like we were going to face death that day. That's what I got and these caskets are rising out of the flooding waters. That was a very eerie thing, instead of a positive thing where you feel resurrected. That was terrible."

Deb: Do you know where your desire to become a winner came from?

Leonard: "My desire came from my mother. I was fortunate to have a good mother and father. I had a two parent family and my mother always demanded respect. I was also fortunate to have a high IQ and fortunate to be successful in everything I encountered despite the obstacles. My mother had an immigrant mentality as a black women living in America through slavery. She'd say, 'Don't cry, get up there and get an A son.' But she hated the race cars. She figured I was a college graduate, they were poor white trash. I said I don't look at them that way. I look at them as racers. She'd say,' that's what they are.' I'd say Mom, I'm not listening to you. Until the day she died she hated the racing."

Deb: When you're not at the track what do you miss the most?

Leonard: "I miss the start of a safe race. I like a safe race. I'd just like to see the start and see everybody get through it. I like the thrill of the start of it more then anything."

Deb: When things get tough, what makes you get tougher?

Leonard: "I get tougher because I don't want to accept defeat, in the normal sense of the way. Humbly I've been through most things in life and I know that in every battlefield that I've been on, I have to be tough, because I represent a race of people that are not respected too much in this country, and I don't want to fail."

Deb: Is there one moment in the past that sparked your quest to race?

Leonard: "The moment was back when I was hot rodding in 1953 on the East Coast. Everyone tried to go over 100 mph. It was a great thing in a 50's hot rodder. You haven't passed the test until you went over 100 mph. Of course on the West coast they were trying to go over 200 mph on dry lakebeds. After I achieved 100 mph I said oh, that's pretty easy. On the streets as a kid you would race people and beat them or you're defying death going around curves without hitting a tree. Then I felt very comfortable in the racing environment."

Deb: Additional comments, this is where you can tell us anything you'd like to say Leonard...

Leonard: "I would like to say that the writing of "Silent Thunder" has loosened up a lot of pinned up feelings that I never could express, prior to the writing of the book. When I'm in the around in the racing environment, my story which is so different then most racers stories or race car owner, or promoters, that I could never express myself. What "Silent Thunder" has done for me is let everyone know what I actually experienced which is different than what they tried to paint the black experience in racing. Like, hey the guy just showed up at the track with a helmet and he gets in a car or a black owner shows up and everything is OK. That kind of relieves all of those feelings, and then after I wrote the book, I never realized that I am the first black person ever in the history of racing to write a book on his or her experiences. My son now has written a sequel to the book, which is 99 percent completed, to the date."

Deb: " He races also?'"

Leonard: " No, Lenny runs the team. I'm the founder of the team. My son is one of the best foul weather pilots in the world. We wouldn't let him race cars because Tommy Thompson, our driver back in 1978, was killed at the Trenton Speedway in front of my whole family and my wife said she would divorce me if I ever put him in a race car. So what we did we secretly went off and started flying airplanes, and he became a good flyer. He went though a lot of tough racial discrimination in fact he use to fly Buffalo when he was flying freight. The white pilots would fly Florida when Buffalo was bad. He flew all of the bad routes Montreal, Buffalo was considered bad routes, all the North Eastern states. I kept him in there. He almost quit on me but I said the racial discrimination you are going through Lenny, they're making you the best pilot. So, now today what is he? A Boeing 777 pilot. He can put a big plane anywhere. He gets off the plane and then runs the racing team. He has been by my side since he was five years old. He has always said he wanted to be Roger Penske. He used to get parts from off his truck in Watkins Glenn in New York. He has a desire to follow his father and try to imitate the big racing guys like Roger Penske."

Deb: Were you born in Wayne Pa?

Leonard: "I was born in Philadelphia at Hammond Hospital, a famous hospital in 1934, the worst year of the depression. I never lived a day in the city of Philadelphia. My mother had taken a cooks job at a large Estate because living was good and she could keep us away from depression and 1934 is the year we had more deaths and more people in soup line, then any other year."

Leonard: "There are three ways blacks get into athletics. Blacks get into athletics through a white angel to boycotting products and super human events. So I did have one white angel in my life by inadvertent circumstances, and his name was Mr. Campbell. I was having problems trying to get a million dollars from Brown and Williamson Tobacco Co. to sponsor the team. For a whole lot of reasons this was in the 70's. Mr. Campbell's grandson Mo said 'look, my grandfather can help you get this money.' Outside of Philadelphia, they lived on an Estate that looked like those Louisville horse farms that have those white fences that go everywhere. Mo says 'Grandpa. I have Leonard Miller here and he needs your help. He's trying to go into big Indy car racing and he has a project that needs your help.' Mr. Campbell looked at me and said 'Miller. Miller.I know you and he's like 93 years old. Your mother was one of the great cooks we've had in this area and she never stole anything.' (I was stabbed in the heart with that one) Maybe I can help you.' These were rich people. They had a cartel on tulips and got a penny for every tulip that came into America from Holland, up from New York to the Mississippi River at that time- from 1888, a penny for every tulip. "

"So, Mr. Campbell calls the vice-chairman of the board of Williamson Tobacco Co. he says 'John, I have the Miller boy here.' (Now I'm 32 years old) I'm holding and not saying a word. They talked a long while. Then he said 'Leonard, I think I have the money.' He put his hand over the mouth piece of the phone, and he said 'Leonard, I've never known a colored boy ever to have a million dollars and I've really never known a colored boy to ever have seen a million dollar check. Now you're not going to steal this money are you?' I said Mr. Campbell, I'm just like my mother. My mother never stole anything and I'm not going to steal this money either. He said 'You've got a point there.' He got on the phone and loosened the money up. We went up to the top 60 teams in the world. He became White, Inc.

Deb: So will you be writing another book?

Leonard: "I'm on the third book right now this book primarily goes from 1939 to 1993 with a fast forward to 2001. Lenny is covering the period from 1994 to 2002 and that's 99 percent finished. I'm on a third book because a lot of black racers experiences have swept under the rug. I wanted to get it off my chest. I feel better. I've been going around pinned up with this for years."

Deb: As I'm sitting here listening to you talk and all of the stories I've come up with a title for your next book maybe something like getting the race out of racing. I've enjoyed my interview with you Leonard and good luck with your books and family. We are looking forward to more of your books.