Leonard T. Miller facts for kids

Pilot and auto racing team owner Leonard T. Miller

Leonard T. Miller is an amazing person who has done many great things in flying, car racing, and writing books. He was born in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and he finished college at Morehouse College in 1983. He studied Business Administration there.

Life as a Pilot and Racer

Becoming a Pilot

After college, Leonard Miller learned to fly. He got his private pilot's license at DeKalb-Peachtree Airport in Atlanta. He trained in a small plane called a Cessna 152. He had loved flying since he was 14 years old. His first flying teacher was a former member of the famous Tuskegee Airmen.

To pay for more flight lessons, Miller worked as a salesman for Frito Lay in Philadelphia. He needed more training to become a commercial pilot. He flew a single-engine plane to report live traffic news for radio station WHWH. He flew over the Trenton-Princeton area in New Jersey. Later, he flew cargo at night across the eastern United States. He used a twin-engine Cessna 310-R for this job.

In 1987 and 1988, Miller flew for Alleghany Airlines and Business Express. He piloted a Shorts 360 plane. He flew to different airports in the northeastern United States. In 1989, he joined United Airlines. He started as a flight engineer on a DC-10 plane. Later, he became a pilot for bigger planes. He has flown the Boeing 737, 757, 767, and 777. He has flown these planes all over the world. This includes North America, Europe, and Asia.

Racing with Miller Racing Group

While flying, Leonard T. Miller also leads Miller Racing Group, Inc. (MRG). This is a car racing team that his family started. His father, Leonard W. Miller, was the first Black person to enter a team in the Indianapolis 500 race in 1972.

Since the mid-1990s, MRG has mostly had Black drivers. They have raced in NASCAR, ARCA, and Formula BMW Americas. Big companies like General Motors and Dr Pepper have sponsored the team. On July 7, 2001, Miller's team won a race for Dr Pepper. This was at the Coastal Plains Speedway in Jacksonville, North Carolina. In 2003, he received an award called the "Trailblazer Award." This was for helping African American race car drivers.

Miller and his father made history in NASCAR. They were the first African American team owners to win a track championship. This happened in 2005 in the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series. Their driver, Franklin Butler, won the championship. He drove their Chevrolet car at Old Dominion Speedway in Manassas, Virginia.

In 2006, Miller found a talented go-kart driver named Joel Jackson. Joel was from Kingston, Jamaica. Miller helped him race in Formula BMW Americas. These races took place on road tracks in the U.S. and Canada.

Writing Books and Screenplays

Screenwriting

Leonard Miller helped turn his father's life story into a movie script. His father's book was called Silent Thunder. In 2007, this script was a finalist in a big international contest. It was one of the top five scripts out of 1700 entries. These entries came from 14 different countries.

In September 2001, Miller wrote a short story called "Stranded: A Pilot’s Story." This story was part of a book titled 09/11, 8:48am: Documenting America’s Greatest Tragedy. The book was later made into a play in London, England. Miller and the book's editor, Ethan Casey, attended the play.

Published Books

Miller also wrote a book about his own car racing experiences. It is called Racing While Black: How An African-American Stock Car Team Made Its Mark On NASCAR. He wrote it with Andrew Simon, an editor from ESPN: The Magazine. The book was published in February 2010 by Seven Stories Press.

AutoWeek magazine thought Racing While Black was one of the best books to read in 2010. They listed it in their January 11, 2010, issue.

Leonard Miller and Miller Racing Group, Inc. have been featured in many news stories. They have appeared in The New York Times, AutoWeek, USA Today, and other publications.