Robin Miller (journalist)
Robin Lee Miller (born October 27, 1949, in Anderson, Indiana) is an American motorsports journalist. He was an Indy car pit crew member and drove in the USAC midget series in the 1970s. Miller is best known for being a writer at The Indianapolis Star from 1968-2001.
He has also written for Autoweek and Car and Driver and is currently a correspondent and senior writer for RACER magazine and RACER.com while also reporting on IndyCar racing for the NBC Sports Network.
Racing career
Miller first visited the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1957, and attended his first Indianapolis 500 in 1959. In 1968, at the age of 18, he got to "stooge" for his driving hero Jim Hurtubise at Indy. Miller was hired for free to do odd jobs with the pit crew, but was fired before the end of the month after he ruined the paint job on Hurtubise's car.
Miller become friends with chief mechanic Bill Finley, and driver Art Pollard. From 1971-1978 (concurrent to his work with The Star), Miller began working on pit crews at the Indianapolis 500. It was common during that time for racing teams to hire extra freelance help for the Indy 500 due to the extended (month-long) work commitment. He was assigned to various jobs, such as the pit board and vent man, but never worked mechanically on the cars. Finley, one of the last true chief mechanics at Indianapolis, described Miller as "without a mechanical bone in his body."