NHRA

Melanie Troxel Phoenix test 2008-01-25

Troxel blasts into Phoenix Testing CHANDLER, Ariz. (January 25, 2008) - Nitro Funny Car rookie Melanie Troxel took two short blasts Friday behind the wheel of the ProCare Rx Dodge Charger at the NHRA National Time Trials at Firebird ...

Edited: Jan 27, 2008, 2:23 AM

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Troxel blasts into Phoenix Testing

CHANDLER, Ariz. (January 25, 2008) - Nitro Funny Car rookie Melanie Troxel took two short blasts Friday behind the wheel of the ProCare Rx Dodge Charger at the NHRA National Time Trials at Firebird International Raceway in Chandler, Ariz. On her first pass, she struggled with visibility and hit the 330-foot timing cone before coasting across the line; her second pass netted a solid launch into tire shake as she closed out the day as the last car down the track.

"We got a lot of bugs worked out today," Troxel said. "That first lap was pretty ugly because I hade trouble seeing, but we took care of that when we made the night pass, and things felt a lot better.

"I couldn't see exactly where I was going, and I don't know exactly why, really. We have some new equipment here, and I haven't made a lot of passes on this car, so I think I didn't have the adjustments set right. Fortunately, we didn't really damage anything, and we were able to get things worked out for the second run."

The only real benchmark numbers were taken at 60-feet, her first lap netting 0.935 seconds, and her second slowing slightly to 0.970 seconds.

Crew chief Brian Corradi said, "The car was set up almost the same as when Mike [Ashley] ran it in Pomona, only with a little more nitro in it, so we were just trying to get a baseline here heading into testing. It was going straight on that first pass, but Melanie had some problems with her new helmet and she just barely tagged that cone. Other than that, it was clipping along on a decent pass.

"We got that second run in under the wire, and she got a good launch off the line before it started to shake and she lifted," he said.

"The good news is that we all worked out a lot of things, and that's really what the pre-season testing is for," Corradi said.

Troxel added, "We've got a lot of time to get runs in here in Phoenix, and we'll keep working things out to get ready for Pomona. This is really a great group of guys, and Roger and Mike have been incredible, supporting all of us as we've worked through the changes the past few weeks. I think it shows just what we're all made of - this is going to be a lot of fun this year for everyone."

-credit: gcr

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