One such car is called Vanishing Point, obviously lifted from the 1971 movie in which Barry Newman plays a character named Kowalski. Kowalski works for a car delivery service. He takes delivery of a 1970 Dodge Challenger to take from Colorado to  California. Shortly after pickup, he takes a bet to get the car there in less than 15 hours. After a few run-ins with motorcycle cops and highway patrol, they start a chase to bring him into custody. The star of the movie is the hemi powered Challenger. 

Sammy's  car was not powered by your normal everyday blown hemi, or any other common drag racing engine. 2,000 horsepower? No, not close. 5,000? Try again. Well, how about 25,000 horsepower? Yeah? That moves you? Crazy number? That's what it had. I threw this in because it is so outrageous that you may not even believe it.

Sam Miller went from East Coast match race top fuel racer to  the quickest and fastest funny car racer in the world with his Vanishing Point entries. When rocket powered cars were outlawed in the states, Sammy took his act to England, where he became a national treasure in an adopted country.

Sammy Miller was the first drag racer to record an official three second E.T., and to this day is still the only one. However, it would be a few years before he turned numbers like that.  Miller drove the "Pollution Packer" and very briefly John Paxson's Armor All rocket dragster during the first half of 1975. When he had free time, though, he was preparing a car of his own.

Sammy began his racing career driving an A/Fuel dragster with an injected small block Chevy motor. He competed at tracks around New Jersey and New York, running 7.80s in the Super Eliminator class. He continued to drive funny cars and dragsters until 1976.

Miller's "Spirit of '76" Ford Mustang II was  the first rocket Funny Car. The car actually featured a Frank Huszar funny car chassis, but had been radically altered by former NHRA racer Eugene Terenzio to accommodate the rocket engine. In August of 1975, Sammy debuted the car at ESTA Safety Park Drag strip in Cicero, N.Y. and with the power not even on to half, he logged an effortless 7.00. For 15 months, he ran the car at all of the match race tracks.

However, the hydrogen peroxide H202 rocket cars were heavily scrutinized by sanctioning bodies, especially NHRA, and with good reason. Two of the class' biggest stars, Dave Anderson and Russell Mendez, were killed in them. Also, Funny Car and Salt Flats racer Paula Murphy sustained a badly broken back when her dragster crashed. 

The NHRA wanted to watch Sammy make some checkout runs, and did so at Orange County Int'l Raceway in late 1975. The officials looked at the car  from all angles. They studied how it launched and handled at mid course and top end. Miller had no problems, running right around 300 mph on every run, and even going so far as to wave at the  NHRA official as he shut off in the traps on his last pass. Miller may have shown his mettle, but the sanctioning body was still uneasy about rockets.

In the summer of 1976, after running numerous low fives and 290 mph runs, Miller sold his Mustang II to a group who renamed it the "Chicago Patrol" and ran it as a regular Funny Car. Meanwhile, Miller was building another car which he debuted in late 1977, his first "Vanishing Point" Funny Car, a 1978 Vega, in which he would run his first three second run.

Actually, it was his first unofficial three second run and it occurred in an incident that probably soured the reluctant NHRA on the rocket cars even more. During a Division 1 points race in 1978 at Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey, Miller was told not to make a full quarter mile run, but shut it off just past half track. He did, but the car still ran a 3.94, a run that went unannounced and one that angered the officials.

In the 1970s, Miller was never able to really lay one down in the United States. When he debuted his Vega, he ran a 4.32 at Raceway Park and then 3.94 a little later, but the days for all out runs in the U.S.  were dwindling down in number. He could get work at match race tracks like New England Dragway and Great Lakes Dragway, but he and the other half dozen or so rocketeers found it harder to display their wares. Also, time restrictions prohibiting 4.50 or slower were instituted by the sanctioning bodies at member tracks. 

The life of the rocket cars was a short one in the U.S, 12 1/2 years in all. It was in 1984 that these hydrogen peroxide powered monsters were finally banned by NHRA and  the other sanctioning bodies. The insurance companies threw the fear into the sanctioning bodies and that was that.

That was not the case in Europe, however, and it was here that Miller found his biggest supporters and made the runs that built an incredible career. Here is where the race fans were introduced to the impossible.

Sammy's first trip overseas occurred in 1978 and led to a 12 year rampage where Miller went through standing start eighth mile and quarter mile records like a tornado. He designed, built, and drove all of his European tour cars, which included his "Vanishing Point" '78 Vega, the "Vanishing Point 2002" '81 Mustang, the '81 "Oxygen" dragster, and the "Vanishing Point 2003" Pontiac Trans Am in 1984.

"In 1978, I had a friend who introduced me to Ragnar Egring, who worked at Pro Sport Management in Sweden," Miller recalled. "Egring was looking for an exhibition car and wanted to book me in for one date. Well, I couldn't go through all the hassle of getting the car on a ship and all the stuff you need to do to race in a foreign country just for one date. Finally, he booked me in for five dates and that's how I got introduced to the European fans, who were great. I mean you'd get like 15,000 of them at Santa Pod Raceway in Bedfordshire, England to see the car."

Egring also was involved in Formula 1 racing and worked for Ronnie Petersen of Mario Andretti's John Player team. It was Miller's friendship with Petersen that produced a  tragic incident, one that probably gave him a moment's pause about racing his car.

"I don't remember the reason why, but I went to see this clairvoyant just before going to a Formula 1 race," Miller recalled. "She told me that I had to stop racing or that I'd be killed and that the car would go round and round in circles before I met my end. Well, you don't like to hear stuff like that, but I shrugged it off. 

"Ronnie was racing at a Formula 1 race in Milan, Italy and I went with him and we ran into Mario and ... well, the whole atmosphere is electric at one of those races. The cars are really exotic. But for some reason, I felt sick, not sick to the stomach, but just real upset, and even though I had VIP seats and all that, I told the guys that I'd like to get out of there.

"So I left for Switzerland, caught a ferry boat to England and tried not to think about this feeling. When I get back to England, I find out Ronnie had been killed at the race. The clairvoyant must've confused the two of us, which really got me going because I was also racing my rocket that weekend at Santa Pod for the first time."

Miller dealt with Santa Pod owners Bob and Roy Phelps, and the elder Phelps wanted to pay "Slammin' Sammy" $10,000 for the first 300 mph run in Europe. The "New Jersey Rocketman," which is the other nickname he's known by, wanted instead to get paid half that money and run a 4.60 or 4.70 at 260 mph. He then followed with an offer to run 300 mph the next year (1979) for the other half of the money and four dates.

Phelps was set in his ways, but finally caved in. Miller's "Vanishing Point" Vega brought the  house down that day with a 4.30 at 292 mph. From that moment forward, Miller became one of the most anticipated drag racers on the continent.

"I could book 20 to 30 dates a year and for the next ten years we really rolled," Miller said. "Not every record I set was in Europe, though. I was at Lake George in Glen Falls, New York in 1981 and we put blades on the "Oxygen" dragster making it an ice sled and I ran that record 1.67 second time at 247 mph."

Miller's European exploits are unlike those of any racer anywhere. The only opponent he had to deal with was himself and it was always in an ultimate "can you top this?" format.  Miller's conquests are best expressed numerically and in simple declarative sentences. Below are just a few of Miller's remarkable feats.

His first three second run occurred at Santa Pod Raceway in Bedfordshire, England in 1980 where he ran a 3.90. (As a point of comparison, the lowest NHRA Top Fuel e.t. that year was a 5.68.) 
In 1981, he set the world ice speed and e.t. record with a 1.67 at 247 mph in the 1/8 mile. 

By 1980, he held 30 United States state and track records in E.T. and miles per hour.  

He holds the quickest elapsed time and mile per hour standards in the following countries: 
(1/4 mile)

CANADA     (4.26/331)

DENMARK (4.97/267)

ENGLAND  (3.58/386)

SWEDEN     (4.10/328)

MEXICO      (4.95/274)

BEST E.T. - 3.583

Legendary rocket car pilot Slammin' Sammy Miller was killed in an accident on Tuesday 29th October 2002 while working in the Texas oilfields for his company Applied Force. He was 57. The incident was unrelated to any of his own work.