Bill Milliken drives the 1932 Miller 4WD Indy car that he raced in the 1949 Watkins Glen Grand Prix, during Watkin Glen’s 1998 50th Anniversary celebration through the town’s streets. Photo: Walt Pietrowicz
Legends Speak

Accident Prone

SportsCarDigest

I think you might call me accident prone.

I had the Miller 4WD car that Dean Butler has now, and I took it out to Pikes Peak. I was hoping to bring it back and run it in the very first Watkins Glen race, but the transfer box busted. I came back and the only car I had was this Type 35 Bugatti, which was the car I used everyday, so I decided to enter that in the first race. I managed to get up into 3rd place but that was on the last lap coming down the long hill on the original circuit. I really had to work at it and I passed one guy, but when I got into the corner, I was going much too fast. I was standing on the brakes, but I couldn’t slow the damned thing down; I went around the corner and the tail broke loose, it spun around, hit the hay bales going backwards, and then it flipped over in front of a barber shop.

Tags
SportsCarDigest
Steve Natale has been playing with cars ever since he was old enough to first hold a matchbox car in his hand. A lifelong enthusiast of anything old with an engine in it or wheels on it, Steve has been active in the hobby for over 35 years. Currently he owns a successful marketing company with his wife Mary, is an automotive photographer, blogger and writer for several automotive magazines and regular contributor to various automotive websites. Steve has attended vintage car events and visited car museums and collections around the world.
Related
Members only$29 / year

Keep going. This is where it gets good.

Sports Car Digest Membership is for people who'd rather spend an hour with one chassis number than skim ten headlines. The rest of this story — and every other one like it — is a few seconds away.

  • 5,000+ members-only stories

    Concours, auctions, race history, driven classics and the full archive.

  • No ads. None.

    The whole site reads like a magazine, on every device.

  • The market, every week

    Auction results and classic-car values from the people who were there.

  • 30% off the shop

    Every Sports Car Digest shirt and piece of merch, all year.

Join Sports Car Digest — Keep Reading

$29 a year. Cancel anytime, no hoops.
Already a member? Sign in

BY CAR PEOPLE, NOT A NAMELESS MEDIA COMPANY. Your membership keeps a small independent team of historians, photojournalists and racing drivers doing this.

Join — Keep Reading $29/yr