AP
Posted: 2008-06-08 01:29:45
JOLIET, Ill. (June 
- Melanie Troxel became the first female to top Funny Car qualifying in NHRA history Saturday night, covering a quarter-mile in 4.752 seconds at 327.27 mph in the ProCare Rx Dodge Charger.
High temperatures and humidity produced a string of strong thunderstorms and at least one powerful tornado near Route 66 Raceway, delaying the final round of qualifying for Funny Car at the Torco Racing Fuels Route 66 NHRA Nationals.
“You come into any given race and it’s such a tight field, you know it’s going to be a struggle just to qualify,” Troxel said. “We got down the track on Friday, but not in the nighttime session and came into today not even in the field, so that’s always a stressful way to start out the weekend.
“We laid a good number down out there in the third qualifying session, especially for the heat of the day, and we were pretty happy with that, but to be honest with you I thought we’re coming up to try a few different things, get down the track.
“Honestly, I’d never run a .70 before, so I wasn’t really anticipating that we were going to take that No. 1 spot away. But I knew the second I hit the throttle the car was on seriously good run, and it was quite a handful out there. At the same time that I’m trying to wrestle it and keep it in the center of my lane, I see Tony (Pedregon) in the other lane going up in a ball of flames. It was a pretty wild ride.”
Troxel but would rather celebrate her accomplishments with a focus on her driving career, not her gender.
“I think for any driver it is definitely the goal, you want to be the No. 1 qualifier,” Troxel said. “You want to win races. The female aspect of it really isn’t that important to me. I understand it’s noteworthy and I don’t have a problem with it, but personally for me, as far as goals I set out, I’m not trying to measure up to the other females in the sport, I’m trying to measure up to everybody out there.”
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