POMONA, Calif. (Feb. 13) -- Despite sitting idle for a year, Melanie Troxel has shown no rust in her return to the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.
On Saturday, Troxel guided her In-N-Out Burger Dodge Charger Funny Car into the 13th spot on the ladder for Sunday’s eliminations at the 50th annual Kragen O’Reilly NHRA Winternationals at Auto Club Speedway. It was a great welcome back for Troxel, as well as In-N-Out Burger, which sponsored her in the late 1990s.
"When we put this together and we knew it was only going to be 30 days to make this thing happen before this race, we had very high hopes," Troxel said. "But Roger (Burgess, team owner) wrote a letter he put out to the team that talked about our objectives and our goals. Our objectives are the realistic things you want to do and then our goals are set a little bit higher; they are things that you would like to do. And we absolutely reached all of our objectives here so far this weekend.
"We came out, made it to the finish line three out of four runs, we were never shut off for oil leaks or anything crazy, and we qualified for the field. That was absolutely our objective, and in that sense we've already put on a good show for In-N-Out Burger."
Troxel’s R2B2 Dodge Funny Car sat idle last year without sponsorship. This year, she has In-N-Out on the side of the car and Saturday, the West Coast fast food mainstay’s president, Lynsi Martinez, was rooting Troxel on from the starting line.
"Today we had everybody here from In-N-Out, Lynsi Martinez, her family and friends, and we sure hope this is going to be a great year for them," Troxel said. “We couldn't have asked for things to go better."
Troxel’s best run of the weekend was a 4.184 second pass at 304.67 mph. She’ll face Bob Tasca III, who had a big final qualifying run to jump from the 16th spot to No. 4 with a 4.075 at 306.88 mph.
Troxel said she’s confident in her car and doesn’t expect this dream return to NHRA competition to end any time soon.
"Tomorrow, we work on the goals part," she said. "That's to go out and improve on our ET a little bit and go some rounds. We're excited. Every run I get more and more comfortable in the car and the guys have absolutely given me a great car to drive. This is the car I drove in 2008 and it has never been easier to drive than it is right now.
"That gives me great confidence going into raceday and we're having a great time. This is incredible chemistry here with this team, and that goes from the guys working on the car, the crew chiefs, to the sponsor."
Eliminations begin at 11 a.m. PT on Sunday.
On Saturday, Troxel guided her In-N-Out Burger Dodge Charger Funny Car into the 13th spot on the ladder for Sunday’s eliminations at the 50th annual Kragen O’Reilly NHRA Winternationals at Auto Club Speedway. It was a great welcome back for Troxel, as well as In-N-Out Burger, which sponsored her in the late 1990s.
"When we put this together and we knew it was only going to be 30 days to make this thing happen before this race, we had very high hopes," Troxel said. "But Roger (Burgess, team owner) wrote a letter he put out to the team that talked about our objectives and our goals. Our objectives are the realistic things you want to do and then our goals are set a little bit higher; they are things that you would like to do. And we absolutely reached all of our objectives here so far this weekend.
"We came out, made it to the finish line three out of four runs, we were never shut off for oil leaks or anything crazy, and we qualified for the field. That was absolutely our objective, and in that sense we've already put on a good show for In-N-Out Burger."
Troxel’s R2B2 Dodge Funny Car sat idle last year without sponsorship. This year, she has In-N-Out on the side of the car and Saturday, the West Coast fast food mainstay’s president, Lynsi Martinez, was rooting Troxel on from the starting line.
"Today we had everybody here from In-N-Out, Lynsi Martinez, her family and friends, and we sure hope this is going to be a great year for them," Troxel said. “We couldn't have asked for things to go better."
Troxel’s best run of the weekend was a 4.184 second pass at 304.67 mph. She’ll face Bob Tasca III, who had a big final qualifying run to jump from the 16th spot to No. 4 with a 4.075 at 306.88 mph.
Troxel said she’s confident in her car and doesn’t expect this dream return to NHRA competition to end any time soon.
"Tomorrow, we work on the goals part," she said. "That's to go out and improve on our ET a little bit and go some rounds. We're excited. Every run I get more and more comfortable in the car and the guys have absolutely given me a great car to drive. This is the car I drove in 2008 and it has never been easier to drive than it is right now.
"That gives me great confidence going into raceday and we're having a great time. This is incredible chemistry here with this team, and that goes from the guys working on the car, the crew chiefs, to the sponsor."
Eliminations begin at 11 a.m. PT on Sunday.
