NHRA (SONOMA) TROXEL QUALIFIES SECOND...

Melanie Troxel guided her Vietnam Veterans POW/MIA Top Fuel team to the provisional No. 2 position after the first day of qualifying was completed in the 20th annual Fram-Autolite Nationals at Infineon Raceway. Troxel ran an elapsed time of 4.561 seconds, 326.63 mph on a run that had her working the wheel of her powerful dragster insuring her of a good E.T. “That’s absolutely the kind of run we needed to turn this program around,” said a buoyant Troxel. “It’s one thing to run a good number at altitude in Denver, but that doesn’t apply anywhere else. So, to come here at sea-level we knew the conditions would be great to get this cool San Francisco air that blows in here at night and we made the most of it. That puts us in a really good position for tomorrow. Now we can work on our heat of the day tune up.” Qualifying continues for the Top Fuel division on Saturday with two more qualifying runs beginning at 12:30 p.m. PDT and 2:45 p.m. ESPN2-HD had a program change and now will air qualifying highlights in two parts. The first will air at 3 p.m. EDT on Saturday, July 28 and the second at 2 a.m. Sunday morning.