NHRA

Phoenix: Larry Dixon final summary

DIXON RACES TO SEMIFINAL PERFORMANCE AT PHOENIX CHANDLER, Ariz. (Feb. 26, 2006) - Larry Dixon, a two-time NHRA Top Fuel champion (2002-03), raced his Don "the Snake" Prudhomme-owned Miller Lite dragster to a semifinal performance on Sunday at ...

Published: Feb 28, 2006, 10:06 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

DIXON RACES TO SEMIFINAL PERFORMANCE AT PHOENIX

CHANDLER, Ariz. (Feb. 26, 2006) - Larry Dixon, a two-time NHRA Top Fuel champion (2002-03), raced his Don "the Snake" Prudhomme-owned Miller Lite dragster to a semifinal performance on Sunday at Firebird International Raceway near Phoenix.

Dixon, who qualified in the No. 2 position with a 4.501-second effort, topped veteran Top Fuel racer Cory McClenathan and rising star Morgan Lucas before bowing out to Melanie Troxel in the semifinals of the 22nd annual CSK Nationals

For the second consecutive race, Dixon knocked off McClenathan in the opening round of Top Fuel eliminations. Dixon used a significant starting line advantage to drive the Miller Lite dragster to a wire-to-wire win. The Miller Lite rail used the fourth quickest pass of the round, 4.509 at 330.39, to earn the trip to the second round.

"Donnie (Bender) set the car up just like the first qualifying run on Friday and it ran like it," Dixon said. "It was pretty simple. Plus, it ran 330 (mph), so that was cool for him. That means the engine is running well."

In one of the closest matches of the day, the 1995 NHRA Rookie of the Year drove the Miller Lite car to a narrow victory over Lucas. Dixon used a Don Bender tune-up to power the Miller-backed dragster to a performance of 4.545 at 326.08 to just edge Lucas, who recorded a run of 4.562 at 320.66 in his Lucas Oil dragster.

"It seems like we're usually on the wrong end of those close races," Dixon said. "This time, it went our way. The car slowed down, but the weather got warmer and that probably affected our E.T."

The Miller Lite car lost traction early in the semifinal round. Dixon pedaled his dragster, but it wasn't enough to collect the come-from-behind win over Troxel, whose car also lost traction down track. Dixon recorded a run of 5.674 seconds, while Troxel advanced to the final-round with a 5.358-second run.

"We had something mechanically wrong with the car," Dixon said. "We had a problem on the warm-up and obviously, we didn't fix it. It went out and spun the tires immediately. If I had a little more track, I might have been able to catch her (Troxel). When it blows the tires off at the step, you have no wheel speed, so it's hard to catch up."

The Miller Lite team will test at Firebird Raceway on Monday in preparation for the upcoming 37th annual ACDelco Gatornationals, March 16-19, at Gainesville (Fla.) Raceway. Dixon is a three-time winner (1995, 2001-02) of the historic Gatornationals.

-www.snakeracing.com

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 Phoenix: Greg Anderson final summary

Next article Phoenix: GM Racing final summary

Top Comments

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

View More & Comment

Latest news

Pedro Acosta proposes new idea for monitoring tyre pressure in MotoGP

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP 33 min

Pedro Acosta proposes new idea for monitoring tyre pressure in MotoGP

“Just a disaster” – How Isack Hadjar’s nightmare Singapore F1 weekend unfolded

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Singapore GP

1 h

“Just a disaster” – How Isack Hadjar’s nightmare Singapore F1 weekend unfolded

Tom Cruise interested in racing ARCA car, per NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Charlotte II

7 h

Tom Cruise interested in racing ARCA car, per NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell

Gibbs, Spire and Gabehart argue over contempt and injunction

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Charlotte II

9 h

Gibbs, Spire and Gabehart argue over contempt and injunction

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