The first time Melanie Troxel got a taste of drag racing outside North America was at last year's FIA Nitrolympx at the Hockenheimring, albeit as a spectator in the grandstands.

"I was still impressed with the level of competition over there," Troxel said. "There was a huge diversity of classes and cars. Plus, Hockenheim is a beautiful facility."

This weekend Troxel is returning to the Nitrolympx as a competitor in the Pro Mod class, her second foray into European drag racing this year.

The first time Melanie Troxel got a taste of drag racing outside North America was at last year's FIA Nitrolympx at the Hockenheimring, albeit as a spectator in the grandstands.

"I was still impressed with the level of competition over there," Troxel said. "There was a huge diversity of classes and cars. Plus, Hockenheim is a beautiful facility."

This weekend Troxel is returning to the Nitrolympx as a competitor in the Pro Mod class, her second foray into European drag racing this year.

"I'm looking forward to going back," Troxel said. "Now having raced in Santa Pod, I've gotten a taste for racing over there. We're looking forward to going back and running some of the kind of numbers we did in our exhibition run in England."

While at Santa Pod, much of the team's energy was expended waiting for the car to clear customs then getting it prepped and tuned to run. Despite all the uncertainty, Troxel ran an exhibition pass of 5.937 seconds at 242.42 mph, the quickest and fastest Pro Mod run in Europe to that point.

The same Camaro Troxel will be driving once again this weekend was then raced to a better ET and speed by Micke Gullqvist earlier this summer in Finland. Gullqvist made the current marks to beat a 5.911 at 245.78 mph.

With the car already in Europe and conditions expected to be favorable, many of the worries from England will not be a factor, so the focus will be becoming reacquainted with the competition and getting down to putting up big numbers.

"The competitors were all very friendly and made us feel very welcome," Troxel said. "The fans over there were great; very friendly and knowledgeable. We're looking forward to being a part of that again.

"All the pieces are in place for us to run really well. The guys have a little more data on running that car over there because the car has run two more events since I was last over there. So we're going to go over there to put all the pieces in the right places and hopefully we'll have a good weekend."

Qualifying for the FIA Nitrolympx will be on Aug 13-14 with eliminations on Aug. 15.