All-female first-round matchup will highlight Troxel's In-N-Out Funny Car

PHOENIX (Feb. 20) -- Although the time sheet might not show it, Melanie Troxel and the her brand-new In-N-Out Burger Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car made considerable progress during three qualifying runs at the 26th annual Arizona NHRA Nationals.

Troxel qualified 12th on the tough Funny Car ladder with a best pass of 4.187 seconds at 285.77 mph. She will face the only other female in the field, Ashley Force Hood, who qualified fifth with a 4.119 at 295.79 mph.

"Qualifying hasn't gone quite the way we planned it," Troxel said. "You make a conservative run on the first one, then get after it in the night session. On Saturdays you work on your race day setup.

"Our first run was good, we had a malfunction in the night session, then the rain shortened us to one run on Saturday and we were a little too aggressive and the car shook the tires. Still, we're all racing under the same circumstances so we need to move forward from here and try to win some rounds tomorrow."

The In-N-Out team, led by veteran crew chief Lance Larsen, is confident in their chances for a good run Sunday, because they feel as though they are zeroing in on the track's sweet spot.

"We haven't gotten down the track as much as we would like, but we learned something from that last run," Troxel said. "We feel pretty good about the car. The Force cars are always tough so we're going to have to be on our game tomorrow.

"(Saturday) had some cloudy conditions that we're probably not going to see tomorrow. We'll take our Friday baseline run, apply a little of what we learned on the starting line on this last run where we found where too far is, and race from there.
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Troxel said that when all that data is applied they should be competitive during eliminations.

"We feel the time slips haven't reflected our performances so far this weekend," she said. "We're good for tomorrow. We've got a good game plan for what we're going to do tomorrow in the In-N-Our car and make (Force Hood's team) be on their 'A' game too."

Sunday's final eliminations from Phoenix begin at 1 p.m. EST.

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