Troxel out in opening round in E'town, maintains TF points lead

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2006 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 11 of 23
K&N Filters SuperNationals
Old Bridge Township Raceway
Englishtown, N.J.
Race Date: June 16-18, 2006

ENGLISHTOWN, N.J. (June 18, 2006) - Melanie Troxel left the K&N Filters
SuperNationals at Old Bridge Township Raceway today still atop the NHRA
POWERade Drag Racing Series Top Fuel points standings, despite her first
opening-round loss of the season.

Troxel was defeated by Larry Dixon under sunny and steamy, near-90-degree
conditions at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park. She launched first off the
line, with a .081 reaction time (.000 is perfect) to Dixon's .102, then held
the lead until the 1000-ft. mark (of 1320 feet), until the Skull Shine/Knoll
Gas-Torco Race Fuels Top Fuel dragster began to lose traction. Dixon crossed
the finish line as the winner, with a 4.674-second ET at 320.43 mph, to
Troxel's losing 4.828/250.69. Margin of victory: .1333 of a second.

When second-in-points Doug Kalitta advanced to the second round, Troxel's
points lead appeared to be in jeopardy. As luck would have it, Kalitta was
then dismissed in the second round by Rod Fuller, and Troxel held on to her
lead by 48 points over Kalitta.

"Even though we had some hot weather conditions in Topeka (Memorial Day), we
were still adjusting to them here," said Troxel. "We didn't have any
conditions like this in qualifying (this weekend), so we knew that we were
going to have to make some changes going up there first round.

"Unfortunately, the Skull Shine/Knoll Gas-Torco Race Fuels dragster spun the
tires down track and kicked the belt off. We had a pretty good lead on Larry
up until that point, so I think we're still fairly happy with some things,
even though obviously it was not the turnout we hoped for.

"Sooner or later we were going to lose first round. It's tough here because
Doug could have taken the lead from us. But, even if he had, it's early in
the season and I'm sure we're going to battle back and forth all season."

Next up is the O'Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals at Gateway International
Raceway in Madison, Ill., June 23-25.

TOP FUEL POINT STANDINGS:
1. Melanie Troxel, 872
2. Doug Kalitta, 824
3. Brandon Bernstein, 717
4. Rod Fuller, 651 (winner today)
5. Larry Dixon, 635
6. Dave Grubnic, 623
7. Morgan Lucas 560
   Tony Schumacher 560
9. Cory McClenathan, 547
10. Doug Herbert, 487