Miller designs Pinewood winner
BUTLER TWP — Mike Miller was a double winner.
The Chicora resident won the Sportsman Stock feature Friday, May 11 at Lernerville Speedway.
He also designed the Pinewood Derby car that won the Best in Show award at the Hovis Auto Supply Derby in Erie that day.
Miller is the head technician in the Baglier Buick body shop, which entered a car in the contest.
“We do a lot of business with Hovis and they were looking for entries for their Pinewood Derby,” Ann Baglier said. “Our guys did a great job with that car.”
The car had to fit within a size not exceeding 2.75 inches in width or 7 inches in length. The cars actually raced on a 30-to-40 foot downhill track.
There were more than 100 cars in the competition.
“We won our heat race, then got creamed in the feature,” body shop manager Brian Kuttesch said, laughing.
“The design and painting of the car, though, won out. Mike did a fantastic job. He still wanted to do more work on it before we took the car up there. He said it didn’t look good enough.”
The car was put together from a square block of wood.
“I designed it after a Grand Prix car from the 70s,” Miller said. “It was fun putting it together. It brought back memories.”
Miller said he built a Pinewood Derby car approximately 20 years ago, when he was a cub scout.
“It wasn’t all that impressive, certainly nothing like this,” Miller said. “But I did the whole thing myself and I was maybe 9 or 10 years old. My car received an honorable mention and I was proud of that.”
Just like he’s proud of this one.
“Everything worked out,” Miller said. “When I started working on this car, I had no idea what I wanted to do.
“Friday turned out to be a good day all the way around.”
