Countless racers – and the NHRA organization itself – should learn this nitro-powerful lesson from Melanie Troxel:

The Business of Drag Racing is all about building, and maintaining, one-on-one relationships.

Melanie is back where she belongs, in Funny Car, in the In-N-Out Burger Dodge Charger R/T, because she understands that BoDR 101 basic fact.

Countless racers – and the NHRA organization itself – should learn this nitro-powerful lesson from Melanie Troxel:

The Business of Drag Racing is all about building, and maintaining, one-on-one relationships.

Melanie is back where she belongs, in Funny Car, in the In-N-Out Burger Dodge Charger R/T, because she understands that BoDR 101 basic fact.

This is a case study more than a decade in the making.

In-N-Out – with approximately 250 restaurants and cult-like fans of its quality burgers, fries and shakes -- helped pave Troxel’s path to the pros. The Snyder family-owned company sponsored her Top Alcohol Dragster in the late 1990s and she was runner-up in the 1999 TAD national standings. Chairman Guy Snyder’s death that year brought the program to an end but Troxel’s success led to a Don Schumacher Top Fuel ride the next season. 

Troxel stayed in touch, especially with Snyder’s daughter, Lynsi Martinez. Most people I know would have given up after a couple of years, taking an “It ain’t gonna happen” attitude, but Melanie kept communicating. Finally, last fall, Martinez signaled a new deal might be doable.

It happened, albeit only a month before the 50th Kragen O’Reilly Winternationals. That allowed Troxel and team owner Roger Burgess just enough time to pull together uniforms, vehicle graphics and a crew led by tuners Lance Larson and Robb Hauser. The Charger Troxel drove to a win and 11th in the 2008 Full Throttle standings had been in storage. In the absence of meaningful testing – five launches at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway -- the team lost in the first round at both Pomona and Phoenix. 

The sponsorship is for the eight races in California, Arizona, Nevada and Texas. Troxel was savvy enough to understand not to push for a national sponsorship from a regional business.

Troxel also runs the In-N-Out ’63 Corvette in 10 Pro Mod events.

“It’s so hard to cold-call companies, especially in this economic climate, and expect to get to that right person,” Troxel told me at the Arizona Nationals. “A lot of times you hear people say, ‘It’s about who you know.’ Unfortunately, it is sometimes, but that doesn’t mean knowing the guy in charge of a company. It means building relationships with people. You never know when somebody is going to leave a company and go someplace else, be with a different brand, that it might make sense for them to do something with you.

“I had a relationship with In-N-Out that goes back 10-12 years. It was a great opportunity for me back then. I kept those connections and, when it was the right time for In-N-Out to get back into drag racing, they remembered our relationship and came to me.

“It does say a lot about networking and cultivating relationships and keeping people aware of what you’re doing and trying to accomplish. Not necessarily hard-selling them, but keeping the connection up, so they remember what you are doing.”

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For years, I’ve been telling racers to focus less on parts and pieces, and more on establishing individual relationships with corporate representatives and media members. It’s this simple: You never know when you might need someone to help you out or give you the benefit of the doubt in a difficult circumstance.

Such was the case last month at Firebird International Raceway – one of the worst promoted, publicized, marketed, administered and run “major” sporting events I’ve seen in decades – and I’m not referring to the terribly sad spectator fatality. This absolutely was an occasion where NHRA and Firebird needed to tap into the kind of goodwill that should have been built-up in the previous months and years. They didn’t and there was none.

Troxel gets that.

“Lynsi always had the passion for racing,” concluded Troxel. “In-N-Out has a long, rich history in drag racing. She understood it made sense in their story. The time was right.”

And Troxel’s story of one-on-one relationship building, that paid off, needs to be comprehended far-and-wide throughout the drag racing industry.

Congratulations, Melanie. Forgive the pun: Well done.