Championship Drag Racing

SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals
Las Vegas, Nev.
(April 10-13)

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Melanie Troxel In-n-Out Burger Dodge R/T

Las Vegas, Saturday: Melanie Troxel turned in two good qualifying runs Saturday and used her Friday elapsed time of 4.936 seconds at 319.90 mph to claim the 14^th starting Funny Car berth for Sunday’s SummitRacing.com Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The performance ended three races of frustration for the Simayof Jewelers Dodge Charger R/T team and sends her against Bob Tasca III in the first round of eliminations.  Ironically, Tasca also is a Funny Car rookie and the two squared off in the season-opening event at Pomona, Calif., with Tasca getting the win.

During a test session at Houston after the NHRA event, crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald decided to switch chassis, and this one did what the other didn’t – get down the track consistently.  On an unpredictable racing surface, Troxel had quarter-mile passes of 5.109 and 4.986 seconds Saturday and she feels much more comfortable in the car.

 “This has been a big turnaround for us this weekend,” she said.  “I feel much better in the car. Each pass we made made a huge difference for me and now I have a good confidence level going into race day. 

 “We aren’t running as quick as we want to but we made it down the track three out of four runs.  That’s a big improvement for us.  We’ll just keep tweaking on the tune-up until we get it running a little quicker. It runs real good on the second half of the track but it’s just a little slow early.”

As for meeting Tasca again, Troxel added: ”He’s the only other person I’ve ever raced in Funny Car.  Everybody’s tough out there but, at the same time, everybody is struggling a little bit. It’s anybody’s game out there on race day ... and it is good to be playing on Sunday”

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