Robin Miller's Tough Guys: Mike Nazaruk
Iron Mike Nazaruk wasn't around very long, but made quite an impression in open-wheel racing.
After fighting in Guam and the Battle of Guadacanal, Nazaruk came home and dove into midget racing, twice winning the ARDC championship. He moved up to Triple A sprinters and immediately started winning on the high-banked pavement tracks like Salem and Winchester, and showing his prowess on the dirt as well.
In 1951, he came to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as a rookie and finished second. He was also fifth in 1954.
Brave and sporting big biceps and forearms, Iron Mike cut an impressive figure and could be pretty intimidating to other drivers, but in 1955 he was killed in a sprinter at Langhorne. He was only 33 years old.
Robin Miller
Robin Miller flunked out of Ball State after two quarters, but got a job stooging for Jim Hurtubise at the 1968 Indianapolis 500 when Herk's was the last roadster to ever make the race. He got hired at The Indianapolis Star a month later and talked his way into the sports department, where he began covering USAC and IndyCar racing. He got fired at The Star for being anti-Tony George, but ESPN hired him to write and do RPM2Nite. Then he went to SPEED and worked on WIND TUNNEL and SPEED REPORT. He started at RACER when SPEED folded, and went on to write for RACER.com and RACER magazine while also working for NBCSN on IndyCar telecasts.
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