Melanie Troxel is back on track
Melanie Troxel made drag racing history in 2008 when she became the first woman to have won races in both of the NHRA’s premier classes, funny cars and top fuel.
But a year later, Troxel couldn’t be found in either class. A victim of the economic woes afflicting the National Hot Rod Assn. and motor sports, Troxel’s funny car was parked in 2009 for lack of sponsorship.
Now she’s back, thanks to a deal with In-N-Out Burger that’s enabling Troxel to race in eight funny car races in the NHRA’s Full Throttle Series, starting with this weekend’s Kragen O’Reilly Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona.
“We’re also trying to find sponsorship for the other two-thirds of the season so we can run all the races,” Troxel said Thursday, the first of three days of qualifying. Final eliminations are Sunday.
Troxel is just one example of how drag racing teams are struggling to keep sponsors at a time when companies are trimming their marketing budgets to cope with the weak economy.
Even the powerhouse funny car team of John Force Racing had to trim its team to three cars from four this season, and the single-car top-fuel team owned by legendary drag racer Don Prudhomme recently was closed.
Fortunately for Troxel, 37, she had a former relationship with In-N-Out, which a decade ago had sponsored her top alcohol dragster, a class just below the nitro-methane-burning top-fuel and funny car dragsters.
This time, the burger chain agreed to be the primary sponsor of her funny car in eight Full Throttle Series races in California, Arizona and Nevada -- the three states where In-N-Out does business -- along with Texas.
“A lot of times these deals are built on knowing somebody, on getting to that right person, and fortunately for me I did have a past relationship with In-N-Out Burger,” Troxel said.
But Troxel, a Denver native who lives near Indianapolis, now has to climb the learning curve again after being out of funny cars for more than a year.
“This literally has come together in about 30 days, it’s just been crazy how it’s all happened so quickly,” she said.
Before Thursday, she had made only five “launches,” or starts, in her Dodge Charger funny car in testing but hadn’t yet made a full pass down the 1,000-foot drag strip.
When she finally made her first complete run in qualifying Thursday, Troxel had an elapsed time (ET) of 4.296 seconds and 285.95 mph -- 11th fastest in the field.
The quickest 16 drivers after three days of qualifying move to the final eliminations Sunday.
“Our goal out here is to get the car qualified, get some nice, conservative runs in and we’ll go from there,” she said. “But we have very high expectations.”
Troxel initially drove top-fuel dragsters and won four times in 2006-07 -- including the Winternationals in 2006. Then she switched to funny cars in 2008 and won at Bristol, Tenn., becoming the first woman to win in both divisions.
“You feel like you’ve paid your dues and are really getting somewhere with your career, and then to be parked on the sidelines for a year was kind of tough,” she said.
“But the perspective I kept was that -- with the economy the way it was, there are so many people in our country losing their jobs, losing their homes -- if the worst that happened to me was that I had to sit out a year from racing, I’ll survive that,” Troxel said.
Reigning champion Robert Hight topped Thursday’s funny car qualifying with an ET of 4.059 seconds and 312.86 mph. Cory McClenathan led top-fuel drivers at 3.809 seconds and 320.05 mph.
