Home Grown never looked so good
The story of Alex Miladinovich and the entirety of the M12 crew is a tale crafted from drive, motivation, determination, and a love of all things fast.
Alex, the man behind the wheel of the Hot 4 Teacher car, got his first taste in the racing circuit back in 1993 while he was still in high school. While he wasn’t working with cars at that point, he was able to develop his skills when it came to wrenching.
As he entered the world of Circle Boat racing as a crew member, Alex was able to learn what it took to keep race engines in top performance conditions. It was during this time that he caught the racing bug, which led him to even greater heights.
In 2001, he took his newfound passion and knowledge and applied it to working on front end dragsters. The transition from boats to cars had a learning curve, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.
That same year, Alex was able to not only build his very first dragster, but also race it. If you asked him at that time, there wasn’t much that was overly exciting about the experience, unless you included all the parties before and after each race.
Years later, Alex decided to make the transition and pursue building dragsters at the professional level. In 2008, he built his first Nostalgia Funny Car, backed by a solid crew.
That first car went on to race until it was retired in 2015.
But that’s just half the story.
While the racing team may be named M12 Racing, each car dons the Hot 4 Teacher namesake. Alex and the team have been asked how each name has been developed, and while the name of the racing team may be a bit dry, it came out of a necessity to have an easily understood team name.
Alex took inspiration from old military call signs where people with long names took the first initial of their last name, followed the number of letters it had.
When it came to naming the dragsters, Alex drew inspiration from close to home.
As an ode to his wife and the team’s Back Up Girl, Marcie Miladinovich, the name Hot 4 Teacher was born. Even though most women don’t like their husbands to be so involved in racing, Marcie has embraced the lifestyle completely, and is an integral part of the team, as well as a full-time teacher.
M12 Racing and the Hot 4 Teacher Nitro Funny Car developed out of a love for things that go fast, to gain that competitive edge in racing, and showing that even a home-grown operation can be developed into a professional level racing team.
Currently, Alex and the M12 crew are working on and testing their latest Nitro Funny Car, making the final adjustments to give it a true polish for the upcoming races later this season.