Dallas: R2B2 Friday notes

Troxel continues good qualifying effort as Fall Nationals begins ENNIS, Texas, Sept. 19, 2008 -- Melanie Troxel jumped from 10th to fourth on her second run Friday night as qualifying began for Sunday's O'Reilly Super Start Batteries Fall Nationals at the Texas Motorplex.

The R2B2 Racing Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car covered the 1000-feet in 4.096-seconds at 304.67 mph -- the fastest run of the day.

"It was a very clean run," she said. "We picked up the pace, which is exactly what Brian (Corradi, crew chief) told me he wanted to do."

Two more runs are on tap as qualifying concludes Saturday.

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Peggy Llewellyn turns in 7.163-second time

Peggy Llewellyn thought her second qualifying run Friday night would be an improvement, and it was, but it wasn't as good as she and team owner Matt Guidera expected.

Llewellyn's R2B2 Motors Buell Pro Stock Motorcycle stopped the timer in 7.163-seconds at 183.00 mph, better than her earlier 7.183, but she needed a 7.109 to make it into the top 12. She's 16th.

"We had a new tire on for the first run and it shook and we got out of the groove," Llewellyn reported. "And we thought the second session would be better because we expected the conditions to improve . . . but they didn't. We should be able to get into the starting line-up Saturday. Our first run comes at 11 a.m. and conditions should be much better."

-credit: r2b2