Over the Wall: Pioneer Millican Reflects on One-of-a-Kind Career
December 08, 2016 | By Phillip B. Wilson
Her retirement routine begins early in the morning in the northeast Costa Rican province of Alajuela, where Anita Millican awakens with her three dogs at about 5 o’clock.
Life on her “quinta” includes filling up hummingbird feeders daily and working on her yard with a helper. She’s involved in dog and cat rescue causes. Twice a week, she’ll participate in aqua exercise for an hour, although the 12-mile drive up the hill from Aguas Zarcas takes an hour before she can enjoy splashing about.
Most friends are unaware that this pleasant, petite, 70-year-old woman spent 45 years of her adventurous life as an auto racing mechanic, three decades of those alongside her late husband Howard. Most of her friends don’t realize this 5-foot-4, 100-pound dynamo was the first credentialed female mechanic at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1980 as well as the first of her gender to go over the wall as the vent “man” on the Machinist Union crew for the Indianapolis 500.
“The few friends that do know can’t imagine why in the world you would waste time and money going in a circle,” Millican says with a smile during a Skype interview. “They think the last 25 years, when I worked on suspension and primarily shock absorbers, they thought I just took a dirty shock off and put a new one on. They have no idea. They can’t fathom it.”
Her journey was neither in pursuit of fame nor distinction. It was truly a labor of love, that started with Howard. She wanted to be with her husband, a widely respected Indy car mechanic, crew chief and fabricator nicknamed “Tilt.” Married in 1966, they became inseparable in building cars together piece by piece.
“Not only did my husband support me, he helped me and encouraged me, and he was so well-respected by everyone,” she said of Howard. “In one word, it would be love. My husband and I wanted to be together.
“It was exciting. I can say I spent 30 years exhausted, but I was never bored.”
They met at a racing party in Southern California. To love a man devoted to racing, Millican had to be a real woman, the kind of woman who would love Howard for who he was and not try to change him, the kind of woman who could support the craziness of a sport where drivers risked their lives and often lost them — because Howard was going to do it anyway and she wanted to go to racing, too.
Because of Howard, she became accepted in a time she amusingly refers to as “B.W.,” before women, an era in which women weren’t allowed to walk into the garage to pick up so much the passenger car keys let along work on a race car.
The Millicans' many contributions included the evolution of the flow bench (wind tunnel), early data acquisition and creation of the shock dyno. They built a flow bench by cutting a car in half and mounting it on the wall of their country home outside of Danville, Indiana. Their work in the wind tunnel altered the shape of the leading edges of the race car’s wings for the first time.
Howard grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as a high school classmate of eventual three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Unser. Howard and Anita worked extensively with Unser as a driver. When Unser became team manager, the Millicans were vital to his crew.
“The only time someone who was in the car that wasn’t a driver was when they towed the car out to the pits,” Anita said of one memorable IMS experience. “I was planted in the car, except (driver) Josele (Garza) was about three feet taller than me, so I slid down inside the car and my chin was at the wheel to reach the brake. Bobby came walking down pit lane doing a Bobby, screaming and yelling, ‘You can’t haul that car out there without a driver!’ I popped my head up and I thought he was going to get sick, he doubled over laughing so hard.”
Another time, Unser made it clear in a Gasoline Alley meeting that women weren’t allowed in their garage. Anita remembers thinking how she was tired and could use the time off, but when she asked Unser about the rule, he said, “I didn’t mean you, son!”
Anita became so respected, she was one of the first card-carrying female members of the Machinist Union. Rick Galles, owner of Al Unser Jr.’s 1992 Indy 500-winning car, asked the Millicans to create the team’s research and development center.
The Union wanted to publicize her involvement as a female pioneer, but Anita believed one of the popular mottos preached when she worked six years for Penske Shocks: “There are no individual stars on a race team. There’s the team.” Another Penske-ism she quotes is, “Perfect is good enough.”
Her approach to work, put simply, was, “Head down and elbows out.”
By the 1990s, the Millicans were known for turning out the best in high-technology merchandise, wind tunnels, triple and quad shock absorbers, shock dynos and carbon-fiber designs.
“I enjoyed the perfection, the precision of that kind of work,” she said. “I had grease under my fingernails, calluses on my hands, sweaty armpits, wore a bandana and clodhopper boots.”
After spending a life as gypsies in racing, the Millicans wanted to retire to a farm. They eventually found a spot in Costa Rica and fell in love with the climate and the friendly people. For about 25 years, they would visit annually to make improvements and prepare their farm for life after racing.
“It’s all ready. It’s all done. All we have to do is come here,” Howard finally said.
“It was the last time he saw it,” Anita said.
Howard died from cancer in 1995 at the age of 59. Until her final day, Anita will forever insist that Howard was the real story. Her reward was being there with him.
She assures there are a “million” warm memories from a life in racing. That, too, never dies.
“It’s a part of me, as much as my skin is a part of me,” Anita said. “It’s a part of who I am, how I am, why I am, the way I am.”
Notable women engineers and mechanics
In May 1971, women were allowed credentials to enter the pits and the garages at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first time. Once women writers were credentialed, other women followed and made their way onto crews. To date, there have only been a handful of female engineers and mechanics. Here are a few that are specific to IndyCar:
Mary Hulman George – She not only helped on a sprint car crew, she was one of the first women to become a sprint car owner at age 18. Over the years, she had interest in other cars and was recently inducted into the Auto Racing Hall of Fame.
Eloisa Garza - She built the first Indy car out of carbon fiber while working for Jim Hall -- Johnny Rutherford's Chaparral that won the Indianapolis 500. She Launched EG Composites and now has parts on the planet Mars on NASA's rover.
Linda Conti – The first woman in the Skip Barber Pro Series School for Race Mechanics. She was on A.J. Foyt’s crew for several years and with Lotus in Formula One. She was the Simpson rep handling helmets for all the drivers and was a team manager to Robbie McGehee in IndyCar in 1999. An accomplished IMS radio host as well, you’ll often find her in the spotter stands during the Indy 500.