Drag race photographer eager to be back on track

Cameraman Robert Miller is aching to get back to drag-race filming. Picture / Greg Bowker

Drag racing enthusiast Robert Miller is eager to get back behind his camera after a spectacular crash sent him flying through the air.

Mr Miller, whose aerial exploits featured on the front of yesterday's Herald, escaped with scratches and cuts when a drag car competing at Meremere hit a barrier at 200km/h.

Recovering at home yesterday, he said he was lucky the car, driven by Pukekohe man Clark Fiddes, had not gone over the top of the guard rail .

"If he'd actually gone over it I would have copped it full on and it would have been a different story."

The impact shunted the steel barrier into the media stand where Mr Miller was filming on Sunday.

"Next thing I'm looking at the sky and [doing] what felt like a big, lazy back-flip, and then I crashed into the ground," he said.

The 42-year-old machine operator has been filming drag races at Meremere as a hobby for the past 16 years.

He has clearance from the organisers and is in the process of obtaining media accreditation.

Drivers occasionally buy his footage, but Mr Miller said it was mainly for his own interest.

The crash had not put him off the pastime.

"Definitely not. I just love the sport. The thing that happened was just one little thing and it hasn't changed my mind at all."

He usually films around the starting line and said it was coincidence he took up a position on the media stand.

"Normally there's another guy who's up there, but he wasn't there. I thought 'there's no one there, I may as well use that' because you get a nice view."

Mr Miller hopes to be back filming the drags at Meremere on January 7 but if not, he would definitely be at the track for the northern nationals on January 22.

Mr Fiddes, who was discharged from Waikato Hospital on Sunday night, said he had a "fair bit of bruising" but was otherwise fine.

He said his $80,000 Camaro would be checked for any mechanical fault that may have caused the crash.