2007 NHRA NATIONAL EVENT SCHEDULE
Listen to Trackside Interviews with Champions, Drivers and Crew Chiefs
Robert Hight
Hillary Will
Bob Vandergriff
Dave Connolly
Ed Iskenderian
Cory McClenathan
Robert Hight
Jim Yates
Tony Bartone
Hillary Will
Whit Bazemore
Byron Hines
| TROXEL QUALIFIES NO 2 READY TO
RACE IN HOUSTON BAYTOWN, Texas (March 31) – Melanie Troxel is anticipating taking her Vietnam Veterans POW/MIA dragster to the finish line in continuing to add on to her POWERade points total in the ‘Countdown to the Championship’. But after intermittent rains ruled the skies on Saturday, causing a cancellation of the final two rounds of qualifying at the 20th annual O’Reilly Spring Nationals at Houston Raceway Park, she is ready to race. With the field set now, Troxel parlayed her 4.530 elapsed time along with a speed of 323.89 mph to give her the opportunity to race from her No. 2 starting position, her highest so far in the young 2007 drag racing season, enabling her to square off against Alan Bradshaw. It their four previous meetings, Troxel has captured every match up with their last pairing being the 2006 U.S. Nationals, also in the first round. “It’s definitely a great record, but you can never count anybody out,” said a philosophical Troxel. “The tough part about Sunday is coming out and running at 11 o’clock in the morning when we haven’t run at that time of the day before. We feel really good about the fact that we qualified well and in a great position, but we’re just going to have to stick to our original plan and go up there and race. You can’t take first round lightly, no matter who it is and we’ll do our best first round. “Richard (Hogan, crew chief) is getting more confident in his setup every weekend and as a driver that makes me feel more comfortable in the car.” The green light will flash at 11 a.m. on Sunday, April 1 at Houston Raceway Park with ESPN2 airing final round results at 4 p.m. EDT. |
