Melanie Troxel entered the volatile world of nitro Funny Cars with few preconceived notions. The Avon, Indiana-based Top Fuel veteran knew converting from her 300-inch wheelbase dragster to the shorter confines of a nitro-burning Funny Car would provide the challenge of a lifetime.
Those who know the six-time (two in Top Alcohol Dragster) national event winning Troxel admit she’s up to any challenge. Funny Car will prove no different.
Add into the mix an off-season of uncertainty with Funny Car chassis design specs and sponsorship issues, Troxel’s first days behind the wheel were anything but a walk in the park.
“We did a lot of testing in the pre-season, I had only two full passes to get my license,” Troxel admitted.
Add into the mix a broken chassis on the team’s primary test car, a vehicle updated to the 2008 S.F.I. specs, and Troxel was forced into the team’s back-up car not only for the balance of the Phoenix test but also at the season-opening NHRA CARQUEST Winternationals in Pomona, Ca.
Troxel never flinched at the challenge. She headed into Pomona and responded in her unique competitive way by leading qualifying for one session on Saturday before settling into the third seeding for Sunday’s final eliminations. Her early successes was, in a manner, Troxel’s way of thumbing her nose at the bad fortunes which had beset the team before they even turned a tire under power in 2008.
“The two passes that we made in Pomona were literally my third and fourth passes to the finish line in a Funny Car,” Troxel said. “I’m still quite a rookie. It’s given me a lot of confidence just to have the car down there and to reassure myself that I’m keeping up with the car. I’m still making adjustments to the way I drive the car.”
“We try not to do competitive things around our house. No good would come from that.” – Melanie Troxel
Of course, it doesn’t hurt when your husband is competitive Funny Car driver Tommy Johnson, Jr., driver of Kenny Bernstein’s Monster Energy-sponsored entry.
“I’ve listened for years to Tommy talk about how much more aggressive you have to be with these cars,” Troxel said. “I know that but when you get in the car your instincts take over and after 10 years of driving dragsters it’s hard to break those habits. I’m literally having to, in the four seconds that the car is going down the track, you literally have to just react; you’re not thinking, ‘oh yeah I have to be more aggressive about this, you just do it.”
Troxel has previous experience in a Funny Car, but not of this caliber and certainly, not of the nitro-burning persuasion. She is, by her own admission, getting a serious dose of on-the-job training. She credits the Gotham City Racing crew led by veteran tuners Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald as an asset in the high-speed learning curve.
“Every pass I’m breaking habits and hopefully making new ones,” Troxel said. “I’ve got a great group of guys to work with that have been absolutely supportive and there’s no pressure over there. If we don’t qualify then we don’t qualify kind of thing. That’s made it very enjoyable for me.”
Is the Funny Car experience like driving a Cadillac? Not hardly, if you ask the freshman standout. Troxel said the demands of her time in the cockpit are greatly increased.
“You know what’s funny is that after I made a couple of passes — I think my first 2 passes — in this car after Vegas we were like a 4.82 and a 4.81, which were pretty good passes for the car. I was like ‘oh really is that good?’” Troxel said.
“I didn’t really know and you don’t get the sensation I think obviously for a couple of reasons,” Troxel pointed out. “The Funny Car is not as quick as the dragster, I’ve got 4.45 in the dragster and we’re not ever going to come close to that, at least not anytime soon in the Funny Car. It was less of a sensation of quickness and speed for me but you’ve got that body around you, you’re a lot busier.
“It’s not to say that it’s less exciting I mean you don’t get quite the sensation of speed but you’re a whole lot busier and working a whole lot harder to keep that car in the groove.
At this point, she cannot tell a good pass from apple butter. A good pass to her, at this point in the game, is not measured in elapsed time but whether or not her Dodge Charger Funny Car makes it to the finish line under power.
“I’ve got 4 passes to my name so far so I don’t know,” Troxel admitted. “The guys are like hey did you know you were on a good pass? I’m like, ‘no I knew it was going to the finish line and that was great. That’s how I judge passes right now. If we can get to the finish line in a groove then that’s a great pass. I don’t have a real good feel. I feel what the car is doing and I’m actually enjoying how much more feedback this car gives you than a dragster.
“You can hear what the engine is doing so much more clearly — and feel what the car’s doing. I’m still learning what I’m feeling in the car. All of these sensations are new to me. As far as knowing how hard it pulls to be on a really good run I haven’t quite got to that point yet.”
Troxel held a special press conference with the media on Saturday following her incredible No. 3 qualifying effort, and in the midst of that gathering the reporters tried their best to goad her into doing the one thing that used to irritate her as a Top Fuel driver – make a comment about how easy Top Fuel driving is when compared to the challenge of a Funny Car.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Troxel responded to the trademark questions while smiling to her publicist. “A lot of people have tried to get me by saying which do you like better? I don’t have enough passes yet to say which I like better. I’m having a great time right now and I knew that this would be quite a challenge, which is kind of part of the reason that I liked it. I’m having a good time right now and they’re two totally different things.
”I spent years listening to the Funny Car drivers talk about how easy the dragsters were and how hard the Funny Cars are to drive so I would not even go there now to my old dragster buddies and say anything about those cars. It’s much more of finesse; it’s still a skill to be able to finesse a dragster and not be able to drive it the way you drive one of these. It’s just a different skill set that you use for that car but like I said I’m having fun with this car right now so that’s all that matters.”
Troxel’s last experience behind the wheel of a Funny car was a decade ago when she piloted an alcohol Funny Car. Her experience was limited to earning a license and performing in a match race. The second major difference that many dragster drivers turned flopper drivers point is the visibility factor. That level of vision is greatly decreased within the confines of a Funny Car.
“It’s a little bit to get used to,” said Troxel. “You don’t see near as much of the track but to be honest it’s better than I expected. I had experience in a Funny Car before this program, enough to know that when they lowered the body I was going to be ok and I wasn’t going to freak out in there. I’ve heard Tommy talk for a couple of years now about how much worse the visions getting, how much higher the dog house is getting in there and you can’t see much of the track.
“I had been in the car and hadn’t had the body down so I was expecting it to be really bad. We actually towed up to make my first pass still never had the body lowered and they were like hey you want us to put the body down? I was like yeah that would be good I’d like to see what I’m going to be seeing out there. I was pleasantly surprised but I don’t have a reference point to go off of but just to listen to Tommy talk it was better than I expected.”
There’s somewhat of a misnomer that mandates a Funny Car driver must be of above average upper body strength. Troxel has heard the talk and she doesn’t necessarily subscribe to the theory.
“I’d say when you’re actually driving and going down the track it’s not something that enters my mind,” Troxel said. “I can’t actually sit there and think, ‘Wow I can’t. This is hard to do.”
“I can tell you just towing the car around it is an enormous difference when you’re just towing around,” Troxel continued. “So you know that even going a little faster it’s going to be a little bit easier that it is definitely tougher to steer than the dragsters. Off and on all my life I’ve been into lifting weights and doing things so I kind of think that I’m better than the average as far as upper body strength so I wasn’t really concerned with it. It’s definitely harder but I don’t think it’s so much harder that somebody couldn’t overcome it if they wanted to do that you could pretty easily.”
But, there is an inherent difference as Troxel found out on one of her full runs.
“Coming off the end of the track — you know your coasting down your coming around, the first time I did that at this track they’ve got the end of the wall and some hay bales down there,” Troxel confided. “I started going down and I’m not going to make it. I’m like, ‘what do I do?”
“With one hand I couldn’t make it around the corner, it’s that hard to steer the car so it’s definitely a big difference.”
Troxel wouldn’t mind flexing her muscles following the impressive performance in Pomona, but her humble nature and consideration for her spouse keeps the emotions in check. Johnson failed to make the 16-car cut in Pomona.
“I was heartbroken for Tommy — that’s incredibly frustrating as a driver,” Troxel said. “They’ve got a new deal going on over there so it may take just a little longer to gel and everything. I’m sure they will come back at the next race and be just fine. This is kind of what we talked about people make a big deal about when you guys come up to race each other and you meet each other in the final round. Hey that’s great, if we both make it to the final round that’s a good day for everybody.
“It’s times like Pomona when one of us is doing well and the other isn’t that kind of rubs salt in the wound a little bit.”
All will be fine on the home-front for Troxel and Johnson on those weekends because of an unwritten rule.
“We try not to do competitive things around our house,” Troxel said. “No good would come from that.”
[Source: Torco Racing Fuels]
“Feb 12, 2008POMONA, Calif. – Yesterday at the season-opening event of the 2008 POWERade Drag Racing Series, the CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona (Calif. ), Hillary Will, driver of the KB Racing, LLC Top Fuel dragster, started her quest for the 2008 POWERade points championship with a quarter-final appearance in final eliminations. In the opening round Sunday, Will, the No. 5 qualifier (4.521 seconds, 334.65 mph) rolled to the starting line to race against No. 12 qualifier J. R. Todd. Both 8,000-horspower race cars had problems with maintaining traction on the famed Pomona drag strip, but Will was able to get her rail to recover before Todd to get her first round-win of the new season, 5.992 sec., 168.89 mph to 7.014 sec., 175.73 mph. 
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