The History and
Founding of Millertime MX
by Eric Miller
I'm going to tell you a story...chessy, lame, maybe
even stupid, but nonetheless true. It all
began in the Summer of 2005 when "T-Bone", probably
miserable and doing something not fun,
started recalling memories of his days as a young
rebel rouser, rippin' around his neighborhood or any
other place he could find to ride. As he
pondered his thoughts, he realized that never once
did he competitively ride or race, never once
experience the thrill of victory, the agony of
defeat or satisfaction of your best effort towards a
respectable finish on a motocross track. He
looked over to his son and decided then, wouldn't it
be great to have the little man experience something
the old man never did?
T-Bone made the plunge, bought his son Jake a
machine, gear and with words of encouragement,
taught his son how to ride. Jake was a
natural, better than the old man ever was at that
age. With Jake's progress coming along much
faster than anticipated, the door was opened for
T-Bone to do a little riding of his own. Armed
with a 2001 YZ125 (144) in race prep, T-Bone took to
the track, and by the "track" I mean Area 51, the
best place to ride around these parts. After
shaking the rust off, T-Bone realized at 40 years
young, his dream of competitively racing could still
be realized. He would know, and two
years later, experience the agony of defeat.
Now, he just likes to goon ride for fun.
Fast forward to Winter 2006, I was at T-Bone's house
for a yearly family get together when I stepped in
his garage and saw his stable of bikes. It was a
bitter sweet moment for me. You see about 18
years ago I too had a dream of racing motocross.
I was just 15, and saved up just enough money from
my paper route for a sizeable down payment on a 1992
YZ250. A badass machine that within a month,
was stolen right out of my parents' garage. My
dreams of racing motocross, or even riding for that
matter, were crushed. That all changed though
in July 2007. Knowing how much I loved
my short time with my YZ250, T-Bone invited me to ride his
YZ144 at Area 51. Reluctantly, I accepted.
As I ripped around on his machine, the rush of
adrenaline and feeling of youth came back so quick,
it felt incredible, I really still can't accurately
put it into words. It was then, that I had the
same realization T-Bone did, I'm not too old
to do this, I'm not too old to go out there on the
track and have some fun...! I had to get
involved in the sport of motocross. In August
of 2007, T-Bone, Jake and I traveled to Erie, PA to
look at a barely used 2003 YZ125. This bike
look untouched for its age, it was destiny.
"Pay the man", T-Bone said. That's "exactly"
what I did.
In September 2007 T-Bone and I were talking about
how AWESOME it would be to hang out together and
more importantly compete with one another next
season. Basically, trying to commit as much
time and resources as we could to racing organized
motocross. How every Sunday would be Millertime, when Tim Miller, Jake Miller, Eric
Miller and our friends took it to the track and pumped
each other
up for our respective motos. Yeah, the idea
was kicked around when finally we said, "let's do
this...!" Unfortunately, it never
happened. T-Bone lacked the competitive fire
and desire to race after his single crushing defeat.
He still rides though, albeit just for fun, but if
he did line up with me, I might still be eating his
roost. Thankfully, myself and rider Bob Tyx
had way to much fun the one time we did line up at
the gate and we can't wait to get to it again this
year. Millertime MX "will" have a presence at
the races this year.
Millertime MX is not just for people named Miller
though. We race with our friends too, guys
we're proud to ride with. Guys like Tommy
"TwoStroke" Hart, "Big" Ed Duncan and Robert "Bob" Tyx. Guys like us, who
ride for the love of the sport. We compete
amongst ourselves, to better ourselves and our
teammates. At the end of the day, winning is
great but the most important objective our team and
teammates can achieve, is that they gave 100% and
had fun doing it.
