NHRA

Melanie Troxel Topeka Final Eliminations Report

Heartland Park Topeka

Edited: May 23, 2011, 2:01 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Melanie Troxel

R2B2 Racing Funny Car team continues to make progress

TOPEKA, Kan. – After making a huge leap at the last stop on the NHRA tour by qualifying for the Funny Car field for the first time this season, Melanie Troxel and the ProCare Rx Toyota team were intent on keeping the positive momentum going at this weekend's NHRA Summer Nationals.

"We're making progress," Troxel said. "We're making more consistent runs down the track, but we're not at the ultimate place where we know the car needs to be."

Troxel qualified for her second event in a row but lost in the first round of Funny Car eliminations to Cruz Pedregon. The multi-time series champion crossed the line first with a less-than-stellar pass of 4.539 seconds at 226.70 mph. But Troxel had smoked the tires early in her run and fought the car all the way down the track, crossing with a 5.446-second pass at 179.06 mph.

Melanie Troxel

Photo by: Ted Rossino

"From where we were this morning to when we went to line, the grains of water in the air changed quite a bit," Troxel said. "We decided to go race with the tune-up we had instead of going back into the engine and making last-minute changes."

With several weeks of major struggles out of the way, Troxel said the next step is to figure out the fine adjustments that will make the ProCare Rx Toyota sing.

"We're changing things on this car and still trying to find the sweet spot with the clutch," Troxel said. "We're going to work to make this car less touchy. Right now, if you don't hit things just right, it doesn’t want to get down the track.

"We've made huge strides and we just need to continue to tweak on it a little bit."

Up next for Troxel is another double-duty race. She will race both Funny Car and Pro Mod at the June 3-5 NHRA SuperNationals at Old Bridge Township Raceway in Englishtown, N.J.

-source: r2b2 racing

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Greg Anderson Topeka Saturday Qualifying Report

Next article NHRA Series Topeka Final Eliminations Report

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

NASCAR explains why they penalized Zane Smith after latest clash with Carson Hocevar

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Phoenix II

6 h

NASCAR explains why they penalized Zane Smith after latest clash with Carson Hocevar

Porsche boss Laudenbach says he is "not happy" with how things were handled by IMSA in 2026

IMSA

IMSA IMSA 6 h

Porsche boss Laudenbach says he is "not happy" with how things were handled by IMSA in 2026

Five things to watch out for at the F1 United States GP

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

United States GP

6 h

Five things to watch out for at the F1 United States GP

KTM sees MotoGP 2027 as a fresh start: “We never had the chance to build a new bike”

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP 7 h

KTM sees MotoGP 2027 as a fresh start: “We never had the chance to build a new bike”

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts