"She'll worry: 'Oh, you're going to get hurt.' I say, 'Most times I go out, I don't even get on it real hard.' She says, 'Then why do you do it?' I say, 'Two things: One is I know what will happen if I do, and it's just neat knowing that. The other thing — and you'd almost have to have something like this in your life to know, but — I hear one of those things start up . . . and just listening to its heartbeat, and just knowing what's there . . . it becomes part of you. It's hard to explain, but it's a special thing.' "

Sometime late this fall, Miller Motorsports Park will open on 500 acres of property at the Deseret Peak Complex in Tooele County west of Salt Lake City.

It is being self-billed as one of the most extraordinary race facilities in North America.

The 4.5 mile road course — longer than any in the United States — was plotted by Alan Wilson, whom Automobile magazine once called "the world's most prolific race track designer." His designs, among many, include Las Vegas Motor Speedway and a chicane redesign at Daytona International Speedway.

The park will play host to national-caliber car and motorcycle races, including at least one of the vintage auto variety that Cobras participate in today. It will have a 2.2-mile west and 2.24-mile east track, as well as a 3.06-mile perimeter course and a 0.89-mile kart track. A driving school also is planned at the site.

It all is yet another of Miller's babies, joining, among many holdings, the television station and the basketball arena and the movie theater-and-restaurant complex and all those car lots.

This creation, though, may be even a bit-more meaningful than the rest. To understand why, one must first come to know Miller's first true love. One must slide into a Cobra, and go for one wild ride.

Today, Miller owns 11 Cobras and four Ford GT40s. Some are private purchases. Others were bought at auction, including one that required outbidding filmmaker George Lucas ("American Graffiti," "Star Wars," "Raiders of the Lost Ark").

One of the Cobras is set up as a drag racer, or so-called "dragon snake."

None is worth less than $250,000, and not one — don't even think about it — is a reproduction.

"For those of us that consider ourselves 'purists,' " Miller said, "the replicas are . . . the 'ugly stepchildren.' "

Pride and joy of Miller's collection: A Daytona Coupe Cobra worth about $6.5 million, one of just six in existence. Six-and-a-half million dollars: That's $2 million more than Ford budgeted for its entire racing program in 1965.

Picture John Stockton on wheels, Karl Malone for a motor. But just like the Jazz before Stockton-to-Malone, Miller did not always have it so good.

In the early spring of 1962, the same year Miller graduated from high school, a Texan named Carroll Shelby — an accomplished racer himself who set records at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats back in 1954 — birthed the Cobra at a shop in Venice, Calif.