NHRA - Troxel Thankful for Qualifying No. 10

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jay Wells
(704) 662-3525 – Office
(704) 281-5678 – Cell
TorcoRaceFuels.com
 
TROXEL THANKFUL FOR QUALIFYING NO. 10
 
JOLIET, Ill. (June 9) – Melanie Troxel, driver of the Vietnam Veterans POW/MIA Top Fuel dragster, feels fortunate to qualify in the No. 10 position for the 10th annual Torco Racing Fuels Nationals at the Route 66 Raceway in nearby Chicago.  The reason being she is sixth in the NHRA POWERade Top Fuel points standings and the No. 1 (Brandon Bernstein), No. 7 (David Grubnic) and No. 8 (Whit Bazemore) racers in the Countdown to the Championship didn’t make the field, which is highly unusual by all drag racing standards.
            “It’s been a strange year with a lot of people not qualifying for at least one event this season,” said Troxel, the runner-up in last year’s Chicago race.  “It’s looking more and more like if you can just qualify everywhere, that will be a big part of staying in the top eight.  We’ve done well with that so far, but from the team’s point of view that’s not enough.  We expect ourselves to go out there and at least have a shot at winning every event.  We ran well on Friday and we’ll just have to wait to see what happens on Sunday.”
            In her bid to take the title this year, she starts her day racing Hillary Will.  The last match up between Troxel and Will was the semi-final round of competition at the Memphis race last year and will be the fifth time this pair have gone head-to-head.  They are tied with two wins a piece under NHRA racing jurisdiction.  
            “It doesn’t really matter who it is on Sunday,” said Troxel, acknowledging the stout field of 16 dragsters.  “It’s probably going to be tough out there tomorrow if the conditions are similar as they were today.  We didn’t get down the track on either of our runs today.  We learned some valuable information about what not to do for tomorrow and what the track won’t hold and sometimes that is more important than knowing what you can get away with it.”
            She lost to Doug Kalitta in the finals in 2006 coming out of the No. 12 position before defeating David Grubnic, Doug Herbert and Alan Bradshaw.  She recorded a time of 4.478 seconds in the semi-finals, her best run ever at Route 66 Raceway.
            ESPN2 will air the final rounds of the Torco Racing Fuels Nationals at 4 p.m. EDT.  
 
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Jay Wells
(704) 662-3525 - Office
(704) 281-5678 - Cell
Lucas Oil Racing
jaywell1@ix.netcom.com
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