Troxel Wins Top-Fuel Event
Melanie Troxel added her name to a short list of female drag-racing winners Sunday when she blew away the top-fuel field in the Carquest Auto Parts Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona.
But Troxel wasn’t ready to claim victory for all womankind.
“It shouldn’t even be an issue out here anymore,” said the 33-year-old driver from Danville, Ind., whose final quarter-mile pass of 4.582 seconds and 321.65 mph made her a winner over David Baca of Brentwood. “I’m thrilled that there were women in the sport to pave the way and make it easier for us, but I think everybody involved in this sport knows that, if you’re involved in drag racing, it’s not a big deal anymore.
“From the outside, I know it’s a media draw, but in here we’re all just racers. That’s an interesting statistic to say that I’m the X number, but really we just want to be the best team out here and hopefully we’re on to something.”
Shirley Muldowney in 1980 and 1983, Lori Johns in 1990 and Shelly Anderson in 1994 are the only other women who have won top-fuel titles at Pomona.
And only two other women had claimed top-fuel victories on the NHRA circuit, none since 1997, when Cristen Powell defeated the late Bruce Sarver in a final at Englishtown, N.J.
Robert Hight won the funny car final, his pass of 4.763 seconds and 317.94 mph beating Ron Capps’ run of 4.775 seconds and 323.50 mph.
“I’ve been coming to this race since I was a little kid, so this is a huge deal to me,” said Hight, who won twice as a rookie last season.
Hight’s father-in-law, 13-time champion John Force, had qualified No. 1 in the field with the quickest funny car run in NHRA history, 4.664 seconds.
But Force, whose oldest daughter, Adria, is married to Hight, was eliminated in the second round by longtime nemesis Phil Burkhart Jr. Burkhart, a semifinal loser against Hight, is 8-7 against Force in elimination races.
Greg Anderson, the three-time defending pro-stock champion, was a winner for the 36th time in his last 70 events. His final-round pass of 6.665 seconds and 207.75 mph topped Mike Edwards’ run of 6.726 seconds and 206.48 mph.
Troxel reached the final at Pomona last November in the season-ending event of the NHRA Powerade Drag Racing Series but lost to teammate Tony Schumacher.
On Sunday, she was a second-round winner over Schumacher in her Skull Gear/Torco Race Fuel dragster, ending three of the three-time champion’s NHRA-record winning streaks.
Schumacher had won five consecutive events, reached seven consecutive finals and won 21 consecutive elimination-round races.
“That was a special round for us,” Troxel said. “You hate to say it but there is a little extra rivalry within the team. We want the best for each other, but you have that little different feeling when you’re up there against your teammate.
“We hated to take them out, but we didn’t feel too bad.”
Rookies J.R. Todd and Hillary Will, who qualified in the Nos. 3 and 4 positions in the top-fuel competition, were taken out in the first round of eliminations, Todd by Doug Herbert and Will by Morgan Lucas.
“That’s just part of it,” said Will, who smoked her tires. “I wasn’t expecting it at all. I had my foot smashed all the way through the floor, as hard as I could. But that kind of thing happens.”