![]() ![]() “There was never this plan when I was 15 years old or even 20 years old,” Miller said. (COURTESY OF THUNDER ON THE HILL RACING SERIES) Bob Miller, second from left, Bruce Rogers, third from left, and their families celebrate 100 Thunder on the Hill Racing Series events at Grandview Speedway in 2011. The Rogers agreed to it, and decided to name the special event “Thunder on the Hill,” as Grandview sits atop a steep hill. I’ve always been intrigued by that.”Īlong with friend and driver Dave Kelly, Miller approached Bruce and Theresa Rogers, owners of Grandview Speedway, in June 1990 about potentially hosting a winged 410 sprint car race at the track. “As I was going to tracks, I found myself not there as much for the race as I was (for) watching the execution of the show,” Miller said. He also delivered Monday morning race reports on WHUM 1240 AM in Reading. Miller left Reading in 1978 ahead of its closing the following year, and worked for various tracks and series across the mid-Atlantic in the 1980s. ” ‘I’m giving you a college degree in racing.’ I just learned so much.” “ ‘You should be paying me, Bobby Miller,’ ” Miller recalled Vicari telling him. Miller started working at Reading in 1974 for promoter Lindy Vicari, writing stories for the program before eventually serving as scorer, where he worked alongside the race director, announcer and Vicari. “I just remember sitting in the grandstand, looking up and saying, ‘I want to be in that tower someday running a race.’ ” “I never had the desire to be the driver or the car owner,” Miller said. If he couldn’t make it to the track, he would ride his bicycle to Penn Avenue in West Lawn and watch the cars go by as they were being towed to the track. Miller spent countless hours at the Reading Fairgrounds, fascinated by the event itself. “It was really more of a show than just a race.” ![]() “Reading was very, very unique in the way it presented a racing event,” Miller said. A Reading native and 1973 Wilson graduate, Miller started attending races at the now-defunct Reading Fairgrounds Speedway at age 4. ![]() Miller’s accomplishments in racing have been fueled by an innate love for the sport that he developed when he was just a young child. ![]() There’s other tracks they could have chosen, and they chose this one.” You know it’s not by accident, it’s by choice. On Tuesday, he will find his seat in the bleachers in the early afternoon, hours before Grandview hosts the highest-paying sprint car race in the track’s 61-year history as part of the inaugural season of the High Limit Sprint Car Series. “It’s just a real neat moment to be able to sit there and reflect.” Thunder on the Hill Racing Series promoter Bob Miller sits in the bleachers at Grandview Speedway. “Who ever would have thought I’d be running races at this racetrack,” Miller said. The Thunder on the Hill Racing Series promoter, Miller makes the pilgrimage before every special event he hosts at the speedway, with his series now in its 34th season. On a sunny afternoon, Bob Miller makes his regular climb up the steps of the bleachers along the front stretch at Grandview Speedway.Ī few rows from the top, to the left of the start-finish line, Miller finds his seat and looks over the track from the same spot he did when he made his first trip to Grandview as a 17-year-old fan in 1973. ![]()
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