ProCare Rx driver Melanie Troxel made history Saturday as the first female to take the top qualifying position in Funny Car as

Melanie
Troxel might have let the first victory by a female slip by but there
was no way she was going to miss out on the first No. 1 qualifier.
(Roger Richards Photo)

she raced to the head of the pack with a blistering 4.752-second 327.27
m.p.h. quarter-mile in qualifying at the Torco Race Fuels NHRA Route 66
Nationals.
 
The final qualifying session originally scheduled for 4:00 p.m. was
postponed more than three hours due to severe thunderstorms and tornado
warnings. When the track was finally cleared and racing resumed, the
atmospheric conditions had improved dramatically, giving crew chief
Brian Corradi the opportunity to push Melanie's ProCare Rx Dodge
Charger R/T to the limit and all the way to the top spot.
 
“If we had run this session on time, I don’t think you’d have seen a
lot of .70s – maybe a couple, but we really needed it to cool off and
the track to tighten up like it did in order for us to go full bore at
it and give the track everything we had,” Troxel said.
 
"We went up there to try a few different things, and just get down the
track, and, honestly, I had never run a .70 before, so I wasn’t really
anticipating that we were going to take that number one spot away, but
I knew the second I hit the throttle that the car was on a seriously
good run, and it was quite a handful out there. It was a pretty wild
ride,” she said.

Surrounded
by ADRL racers, series president Kenny Nowling demonstrates some of the
hand signals he'll be using to stage and signal the start of each pair
of elimination-round competitors at the 4th annual ADRL Pizza Hut Sumer
Drags in Martin, MI. (ADRL Communications photo)

In an
unprecedented move for major-league drag racing, the Flowmaster
American Drag Racing League presented by the National Guard is
returning to the sport's roots with hand-signal starts at its 4th
annual Pizza Hut Summer Drags at Knoll Gas Motorsports Park in Martin,
Michigan.

Eliminations for the Pizza Hut Summer Drags will resume today with the schedule as follows.

Spectator Gates open - 9:00 am

Racing resumes - 10:00 am

All free tickets will be honored and all spectator parking will be free.

First-round pairings for professional eliminations Sunday for the
11th annual Torco Racing Fuels Route 66 NHRA Nationals at Route 66
Raceway, the tenth of 24 events in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing
Series.  Pairings based on results in qualifying, which ended Saturday.
DNQs listed below pairings.

Top Fuel -- 1. Tony Schumacher, 4.513 seconds, 331.69 mph  vs.
16. Bob Vandergriff, 4.789, 307.51; 2. Antron Brown, 4.516, 331.53  vs.
15. T.J. Zizzo, 4.756, 318.62; 3. Larry Dixon, 4.525, 325.61  vs. 14.
Troy Buff, 4.631, 307.09; 4. J.R. Todd, 4.555, 328.14  vs. 13. Doug
Herbert, 4.622, 318.62; 5. David Grubnic, 4.565, 317.87  vs. 12.
Brandon Bernstein, 4.616, 325.30; 6. Alan Bradshaw, 4.571, 319.14  vs.
11. Morgan Lucas, 4.613, 317.57; 7. Doug Kalitta, 4.574, 319.52  vs.
10. Rod Fuller, 4.602, 319.60; 8. Hillary Will, 4.594, 324.67  vs. 9.
Cory McClenathan, 4.598, 324.75. Did Not Qualify: 17. Luigi Novelli,
9.850, 210.44.

TROXEL BEATS FORCE TO FIRST NO. 1 QUALIFIER; SCHUMACHER, COUGHLIN, RIVAS TOP FIELDS AT ROUTE 66 

Let the record reflect that Melanie Troxel is the first female Funny Car driver to qualify No. 1 in an NHRA event.

After Friday it looked like Ashley Force would become the first woman
in NHRA history to qualify No. 1 in Funny Car. Only Melanie Troxel –
the only other woman currently competing in the category - could beat
her. On her last chance, Troxel did it.

Troxel and her ProCare Rx Dodge Charger team would need an almost
heroic effort to pull it off, and the run itself was no less dramatic.
High temperatures and humidity early in the day produced a string of
strong thunderstorms and at least one powerful tornado near Route 66
Raceway, delaying the final round of qualifying for Funny Car at the
Torco Racing Fuels Route 66 NHRA Nationals until evening. What the
track conditions would yield would be anyone’s guess, and while Troxel
crossed the finish line at 4.752-seconds at 327.27 mph, Tony Pedregon’s
Q Horsepower ride suffered a spectacular explosion in the lane next to
her. Pedregon was uninjured.

Top Fuel dragster driver Cory McClenathan waited until his final
qualifying attempt to lay down a good lap to qualify No. 9 for the
Route 66 NHRA Nationals.
 
McClenathan was 16th going into the final qualifying session after
three difficult attempts. Just before a rain delay halted the action
for over three hours, he blasted to an elapsed time of 4.598 seconds at
324.75 mph to move into No. 8 at the time and solidly into the field.
Following the delay, the Top Fuel session was completed and “Cory Mac”
ended up No. 9 going into eliminations.
 
He struggled on his first three runs, posting a 9.134/85.28,
4.984/199.46 and a 7.972/88.95, before his final straight charge down
the quarter-mile.

A severe rain delay brought equal measures of positive and negative
outcomes for John Force Racing at the 11th annual TORCO Racing Fuels
Rt. 66 Nationals. As Top Fuel dragsters began the final round of
qualifying the track was deluged by rain storms and tornado warnings.
The storms threatened to washout the final session along with Old Spice
Ford Mustang Funny Car driver Mike Neff’s chances to qualifying. Neff
was sitting on the 17th quickest time on the property as the rain began
to fall.

Fortunately for Neff the weather relented and the NHRA Safety Safari
performed track prep magic and after an over two and a half hour delay
Top Fuel racing wrapped up and Neff was able to race into the field on
Sunday with a solid 4.815 second run. The relief was obvious for the
rookie driver and former crew chief at the end of the day.

Gary Scelzi, the only pro drag racer to score triumphs in both the Top
Fuel and Funny Car classes at Route 66 Raceway, will go head-to-head
with his former crew chief, Mike Neff, in the opening round.
 
“This is the first time that we’ve qualified in the top half of the
field all year long,” said Scelzi. “We wanted to see what this car had
and we finally did, but it put a cylinder out at 850 feet. So we still
don’t really know what the car is capable of, which is a little
disappointing. But we’re still pretty happy with what we got.”

Rockstar Energy Drink Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car driver Jerry Toliver
made his quickest run of the season to qualify No. 7 at the Route 66
NHRA Nationals. It marked the third time this season that Toliver has
qualified in the top half of the field (Pomona, Topeka and Chicago).
 
Toliver recorded an elapsed time of 4.783 seconds at 325.77 mph to grab
the No. 3 position following the second qualifying session. The
Rockstar Energy Drink driver also recorded times of 4.908/314.53 and a
tire-shaking 9.352/85.36 before rain halted the final qualifying
session. After a three-hour delay qualifying resumed and Toliver
returned for his final attempt, running a wheel-standing 6.492/136.41
to end up No. 7.
 
"We made a good solid pass on our first lap with a 4.90 and that set us
up to come back for the evening session and really get after it," said
Toliver. "Phil Shuler (crew chief) really dialed her in and we ran a
4.78 and that was an extremely good lap.
 

That ADRL Summer Drags at Knoll Gas Motorsports Park in Martin, Mich., were postponed Saturday evening shy of the second round of competition. The storm that hit the facility came just as track officials had completed a track drying process from a passing the show. Sources indicate this storm was of equal intensity as the one that halted IHRA competition there in 2003. The storm packed high winds and lightning.

There is no official word as of the posting (11:11 PM, EST) as to what the procedure will be to finish the event.