ST. LOUIS (May 1) -- A crazy start to the 2010 Get Screened America Pro Mod Drag Racing Series got a little more peculiar Saturday when points leader and overwhelming crowd favorite Melanie Troxel failed to qualify her In-N-Out Burger Corvette for the 14th annual AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals.
"It's been a bizarre year," Troxel admitted. "Kenny Lang won the season opener in Gainesville (Fla.) and then didn't qualify for Houston. Danny Rowe won Houston but he started the year with a DNQ in Gainesville. Then we get to the finals in Houston, take the points lead, and come here and DNQ. It's just all over the place."
Troxel's best pass of 6.137 at 238.68 mph was .031 seconds off the mark needed to make the cut. She points to the fact she drew the less-than-desirable right-hand lane two out of three times in qualifying as a primary reason she didn't make the show.
"The way Pro Mod is set up we only have three qualifying sessions before we start eliminations Saturday night," she said. "This track has a pretty significant bump about 500 feet out in the right lane and we just happened to get that lane twice. That bump upsets the car so much that unless you have a bunch of speed up before you get there it's very tough to get past.
"With that in mind, we really got after it (in Round 3) and it just didn't work for us. We ended up breaking a fitting in the transmission and we were done. I couldn't get the car in second gear. That bump either makes you or breaks you and it broke us."
A Colorado native, Troxel led the Get Screened America standings by 12 points coming into this weekend's race. However, with three of the top 10 drivers failing to make the show in St. Louis and another three of the top-ranked pros in the bottom half of the elimination field, she probably won't lose too much ground.
"I guess the positive is that we're all pretty bunched up in the points," she said. "I was No. 1 coming in but the No. 10 guy was only two rounds back so it wasn't something we were going crazy about. It's still very early in the season and we've got plenty of racing left to do. Drag racing always has ups and downs. We'll be fine."
The next Pro Mod race comes May 14-16 at Atlanta Dragway, the home track of Troxel's team owner Roger Burgess, who hails from nearby Duluth, Ga.
