Drino Miller has lost his long battle with cancer at the age of 72. An early off-road racing legend—his Baja Boot was the first purpose-built off-road racecar—Miller later expanded his influence into sports car and Indycar racing. He was one of racing’s great innovators, choosing to pursue the sport after earning a Political Science degree from UCLA and studying Law at the University of Michigan.
One of the founding members of the “Baja Brotherhood,” a loosely organized group that explored the Mexican peninsula well before racing was established there, Miller then scooped victory with Vic Wilson in the fourth running of the fabled Baja 1000. He continued building innovative off-road machinery before branching out to develop VW power plants for Midget racing. In 1978 he was inducted with the inaugural class of honorees into the Off Road Motorsports Hall of Fame.
During the early ’80s he worked with Andial, a period that coincided with the ascendance of those purveyors of Porsche performance to the top of IMSA GT racing with their trick 935L. After Andial, Miller served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Toyota Racing Development, managing TRD’s competition programs that dominated off-road racing with Cal Wells’ PPI organization and IMSA prototype racing with Dan Gurney’s AAR Eagle GTP cars before moving into Indycars.
In recent years he consulted with various companies, mainly in the motorcycle industry, and enjoyed taking long rides through Europe aboard his two-wheeler. He is survived by his wife Lisa and his brother Chris, to whom Vintage Racecar extends our deepest sympathies.
