GNCCRacing.com: Hey Cody, congrats on your 2017 UTV XC1 Pro title! Can you take me through your season? 
Cody Miller: Thank you! Coming into the season, it was really difficult because I was switching brands, from Can-Am to Yamaha. We had to do a lot of research and development to figure out exactly what to do with the car prior to the first round. At Wild Boar I came out and got second place, which was definitely a good building point. The second round, Camp Coker, I ran into some trouble and ended up fourth, but it taught me some things that we could improve on with my setup for the rest of the rounds. I finished second again at The John Penton, this time behind my brother, and second at Mountaineer Run. I ended up with another fourth at Powerline Park, before finally getting a win and wrapping up the title at Ironman. 

Was this your first title?
No, I actually won the XC1 Pro title last year as well, which was actually my first full season in GNCC. The first year I came out and ran a GNCC race was in 2014 and I did run the XC1 class. I finished ninth there. I did the same thing again the next year, but finished seventh. When we finally started doing the series in 2016, I competed in the XC1 division again. That time though, I actually won my first race of the season!

How long have you actually been racing UTVs then? Just last year?
No, I got started with side-by-side racing back in 2012 on a Commander, but didn’t do my first GNCC on a side-by-side until 2014.

Awesome, that’s a good way to get started! Pretty impressive going into your second GNCC ever and your first full season. So, did you race other things before getting into the UTV’s?
Yeah, I went all the way up through the ranks of ATV Motocross, another branch of the Racer Productions Family. It was a lot of fun, and I had a factory sponsorship with Can-Am. From 2008-2013 I raced in that series full time. I won a title in my age group class before stepping up to the pro class, and managed to break the top 10 in the Pro class several years in a row. 

What lead you to the decision to switch over to UTV racing?
Like I said, I had a sponsorship through Can-Am and they wanted to start having people competing for them in UTV races. My brother and I always thought it would be cool to drive those things. We basically got an opportunity to race them in the TORN series. So we jumped right into it, and had some pretty good results right from the beginning; I won the Open Expert, Pro-Am and Pro class all within my first two years of racing. The transition is pretty much complete now – in the last five years we’ve had almost all of our sponsors from ATV racing switch over to UTV racing. 

So in a way you’ve come full circle – you started out racing in the ATV Motocross series, left for awhile to ride in the TORN series, and now you’re back again racing UTVs in the GNCC series.
Yep. And by the time we came back, it was basically only to race side-by-sides as our main focus in 2015, although I do still race ATVs on occasion, usually in the 4x4 Pro or Sportsman classes. [Editors Note: Cody actually pulled triple duty at some of the races this year, racing in the 10 a.m. ATV race, UTV race and 10 a.m. bike race.]

Backtracking a little bit, you mentioned your brother a couple of times now. Before the interview, I was checking out results and saw that a Hunter Miller finished second in the XC1 Pro class this year, right behind you. I’m guessing that Hunter is your brother? Are you guys teammates or train together or anything?
Yes, he is my brother, but since I went with Yamaha and he stayed with Can-Am we drive for different companies. But we do work together – we travel together and help each other out. So we are still a team – Miller Brothers Racing. I actually do all of the driving myself, and my brother and family fly in. 

Funny, I’d think being the champ you’d at least get flying privileges! So, while we’re talking about travel and maintenance and everything that goes into the backside of motorsports racing, do you and your brother work on your own equipment or do you have a mechanic.
We basically do 100% of the work ourselves.

That’s got to be a lot of work! I imagine that those things take even more time than a motorcycle or an ATV to keep up with. It just seems like it has so many more moving parts…
Yeah, it definitely takes a lot more time. There’s a huge amount of moving parts and it definitely takes a lot of time to work on them. Just washing alone takes about eight hours.

So do you guys still have a day job then, or are you full-time racers?
We work on a cattle ranch here in Texas, and we also have a company that makes glass for artwork, like for stained glass windows and things like that. That’s why I drive while the rest of the family flies because it is really hard for all of us to take off at one time.

I seem to notice a lot of UTVs get dragged out of the woods after every race. Is there any way to make them more durable and less likely to, I don’t know, bend a tie rod or something?
The best thing to do is drive between the trees and not over them (laughs). That is how a lot of these machines end up broken down, guys driving faster than their ability will allow, and they just smash trees. But yeah, we’ve done a lot of things to beef up the machines. We pick out all the weak points and improve upon those. I will say though that the Yamaha’s are the most reliable UTVs right out of the box. But overall the best way to keep any UTV going is to drive smart.

What is the gnarliest wreck you’ve ever had in a UTV?
I’ve been racing them for five years now and rolled one over on its side two times. There have also been times I’ve been involved with other cars, like going into corners and stuff. I don’t feel like I’ve ever had one that was really that bad though. Guess I’ve just had good luck so far.

Well, I hope your luck continues! Is colliding with the other vehicles about the most dangerous situation as far as UTV racing goes, or is it off-cambers or other situations on the course.
Whenever you hit obstacles on the course, generally the roll cage surrounding you makes it not bad for the driver. The vehicles really get torn up but usually the driver and passenger are fine. Something that is a bigger danger or threat is having a stick coming into the vehicle, especially in GNCC because of the fact that you’re racing in the woods. You could definitely have a sharp stick or branch come in and impale you or at least scrape you up pretty good.

I think I speak for quite a few members of the GNCC Nation when I say that I know very little about UTV racing since it’s still so new. So I’m going to go ahead and display my ignorance because I’ve always wondered about this – what is the purpose of the copilot? Are they just a counterweight to the driver, or do they have a more important function besides that?
No, they basically act as navigators the whole time, and for GNCC racing you are required to have one. You know, at the GNCCs, you can walk the track the day before, but you don’t get any practice. So for the first couple laps, it is really hard to navigate because it feels like there’s no real trail that’s been burnt in yet, and there’s a lot of different lines in some places. So the passenger takes time to study all of that, and will talk to you during the race, telling you what line to take and when. 

I assume you have to talk via radio headset, it’s got to be too loud to be able to yell back and forth to each other... And can you radio into the pits?
We do have radios, but we are not allowed to communicate with anyone else. It’s only for the driver and passenger.

Tell me a little bit about your navigator.
I’m glad you bring that up because I wanted to mention him in the interview, he definitely deserves it. His name is Cody Taylor. He is my copilot at almost every race, and he takes it really seriously. We are good friends, and actually race against each other at the local TORN series. When I got the opportunity to come out and race GNCCs, I asked him if he would be interested, and sure enough, he was. He was with me at that first race we won, and he’s been my copilot ever since. It takes so much stress off the driver when you have a good copilot you can trust, who can help guide you through the event. In turn, they have to have a lot of trust in the driver and their ability as well.