Melanie Troxel Seattle Final Report

Troxel's best pass of the weekend still not enough for Hagan

SEATTLE (Aug. 7) – Melanie Troxel made her best run of the weekend in the In-N-Out Burger Funny Car during Sunday's first round of eliminations at the O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Northwest Nationals, but it wasn't enough to advance to the second round.

"We ran better than we qualified," Troxel said. "We went down the track, which we struggled to do all weekend."

Troxel's pass of 4.202 seconds at 304.46 mph would have been a winning number in three other races Sunday, but it wasn't enough to overcome the 4.162-second pass at 300.26 mph carded by her opponent, Matt Hagan.

Melanie Troxel, In-N-Out/RoadRage.com Toyota Camry

Photo by: Michael C. Johnson

"The guys made a great call this morning," Troxel said. "We needed to go down the track. We made Hagan earn that win against us. With the information we had, they made a good call.

"We're going to need to make improvements on getting down the track more in qualifying so we're not in this tough position on race day."

The conclusion of Sunday's race concludes the NHRA's Western Swing, but it doesn't end the road trip for R2B2 Racing and the In-N-Out Burger crew.

"Most of the teams will have a chance to go back to their shops," said Troxel, whose group is based out of Duluth, Ga. "We've been on the road since the race in Chicago and we’ll go straight to Brainerd from here.

"It's a little bit tougher not going back to the shop, but we prepare for this and try to load everything we need for the extra time on the road. It makes it tricky to not just do the maintenance but also improve on what we've got."

Next on the NHRA Full Throttle Series Schedule is the Aug. 18-21 Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, Minn.