The driver of the Vietnam Veterans POW/MIA Top Fuel dragster, Melanie Troxel is quickly getting the reputation of a speed demon with her third consecutive race where the young lady from Avon, Indiana, has recorded Top Speed of the Meet. She again flew the speed traps with another top-end charge of 331.53 mph this weekend’s running of the seventh annual ACDelco Las Vegas Nationals on the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
As all drag racers know, it’s the elapsed time that counts, but she sure does like the feel of rocketing across the finish line under full power. She pushed the edge with four runs over the 330 mph mark over the Vegas weekend.
Troxel displayed her control over the quarter-mile in the opening round of competition with her great time after improving it from qualifying of 4.514 seconds at a booming speed of 331.12 mph in defeating a tire-smoking, Clay Millican.
However, it was on a hole-shot in the quarterfinals that Troxel lost to Brandon Bernstein. She ran a time of 4.561 seconds, 326.79 mph to Bernstein’s run of 4.566 ET, 327.43 mph in a very close race that had them separated by the slim margin of. 041-of a second at the finish line.
“We’ve got a great operation right now, ” said a happy Troxel. “This car is incredibly consistent although it wasn’t our best weekend. As a driver, I was just pretty mediocre at times this weekend. The car is great and you’re going to have that happen sometimes. You’re going to have days when the car doesn’t run well and some days when the driver doesn’t do her best, but we still have a very consistent car. It certainly wasn’t a bad outing at all this weekend.
“I cannot remember when this car did not go down the track or when you didn’t need to pedal it or do anything to it. It consistently goes down the track and its fast at the same time. I can’t say enough about the efforts of the team, especially John Stewart and Lance Larsen. They are the ones that are really responsible for the performance of the car. I can’t say enough about what they’ve done over the past few months in really turning this program around. We’ve been turning in some great miles-per-hour lately. It’s definitely impressive. The car runs great on the top end and we’re learning a lot as we go. I think we can continually get better and better. ”
Troxel qualified in the No. 3 position with her time of 4.529 seconds, 330.55 mph.
In the Technicoat Shootout on Saturday, Troxel advanced to the finals against Rod Fuller and was edged at the finish line after posting a respectable time of 4.526 seconds.
The next NHRA National event will be the 43rd annual Auto Club NHRA Finals at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, Calif., the last on the 23-race schedule which will be held next weekend on November 1 – 4.
