Local race car driver Michelle Miller recently won her second Sports Car Club of America National Championship at the club’s National Solo Championships in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Miller, of Federal Way, took home the top spot in the Street Touring FWD category, outpacing her nearest competitor by over five seconds.

“I was really happy to do so well,” Miller said. “She (Jan Rowe of Houston, Texas) was last year’s national champion.”

Miller took home this year’s championship in a 2011 Mini Cooper, pushing the car to its limits in the technically demanding style of racing required by the particular category she raced in.

“It’s a course set out with cones, and we generally don’t exceed speed limits,” she said. “It’s tight and technical driving, and it’s on concrete, which means it’s extremely grippy. You get three tries at the course, and run over two days. It’s a cerebral challenge as well as driving as fast as you can.”

Miller earned her first national championship in 2012, driving a Mitsubishi Evo 9 to the win that year. Miller has been involved with racing for the better part of a decade now, and it all started because of a car project she and her husband were working on.

“My husband and I built a crazy car and we got invited to a novice school,” she said. “Driving/racing really clicked for me, it was super fun, and it was really nice to be able to do something with a car you built. The next year I was actually running the novice program for the Bremerton Sports Car Club. I’ve been doing a lot of instruction at the volunteer level.”

Miller now works with DirtFish Rally School in Snoqualmie as an instructor. She said she landed the job due to her racing connections, and DirtFish was kind enough to train her on the unique form of racing that is rally racing.

“I spend most of my days in the passenger seat,” she said.

To learn more about DirtFish Rally School, visit www.dirtfish.com. To learn more about Sports Car Club of America, visit www.scca.com.