Milt Minter

24/11/1933 - 23/12/2004

Record updated

Minter is best known for his exploits in various Porsches in a career that spanned five decades. Minter drove in Can-Am, Trans-Am, IMSA, SCCA, Le Mans, historic races and even in the Baja 1000.

Milton Nelson Minter was born and raised in Sanger and served in the US Navy as a radioman for four years. He was one of the best sports car racers of the modern era and also one of the least famous. He started racing in 1957 and in a career that spanned five decades, Minter drove in Can-Am, Trans-Am, IMSA, SCCA, at Le Mans, historic races and even in the Baja 1000.

Porsche awarded him the Pedro Rodriguez Award in 1973 as the most aggressive driver of the season. He was second to George Follmer in the 1973 Can-Am, finished second at Sebring that year and came second overall and won the GT class in his first start in the Daytona 24 hour race with Francois Migault in a NART Ferrari 365GTB.

Aside from '73 he raced in the Daytona 24 hour race another 7 times, finishing sixth in the 1976 with Chris Cord and Jim Adams in a Ferrari, and 5th overall with Elliott Forbes-Robinson and Paul Newman in 1977. In 1980, he placed third overall with Ted Field and Danny Ongais in an Interscope Porsche 935.

Minter is best known for his exploits in various Porsches and back in the '70s, he drove for Michael Keyser's Toad Hall team. He also drove a Porsche 917/10 for Vasek Polak. He drove for Al Holbert, Ted Field and a number of different teams. Minter also was the first independent to win a Trans-Am race, driving a Pontiac.

He died on December 23rd 2004 after a long bout with cancer.

The true story of Donkey Bop.

There was a bar in Fresno where one of the regular customers was a middle-aged Mexican named Jose. One day Jose asked the bartender if he knew the full name of the song about 'Donkey Bop' that he kept hearing on the juke box.

The bartender was confused and told him he had no idea what song he was on about, but promised to ask the person who serviced the juke box the next time he came in if he had a song called Donkey Bop. Once again he drew a blank, no one had head of the song.

Finally, one day Jose was in the bar when the song started playing. “This is it! This is it!” he told the bartender excitedly as he rushed over to the juke box. When the song ended Jose watched where the mechanical arm replaced the disc. He saw the number where the disc had been placed was E11. He flipped through the menu of songs, and found that the name of the tune he knew as Donkey Bop was in fact 'Don’t Give Up'



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