[Racer Duck]

After a long day of rain delays at historic Thunder Valley, Tony Schumacher, Melanie Troxel, and Dave Connolly were finally crowned the winners of the 8th annual O’Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals. Rain throughout the day led to hours of downtime and a dramatic nighttime finish at Bristol Dragway.


Troxel squared off in the final with Mike Neff, with both looking for a first national event win, and after some starting line drama, Neff’s Mustang fireballed at 400 feet to give the win to Troxel’s backpedaling 5.06. Schumacher defeated Larry Dixon in the Top Fuel final round, 4.555 to 4.958, to score his third win of the season, while Connolly defeated Greg Stanfield on a final-round holeshot in Pro Stock.

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[Phils20]

Congrats to Mel, but it sucks that Neff had issues!

I can't remember the last time I was a car with the body stuck down. So of course, they couldn't turn the air systems on, so the car's clutch didn't engage.

I am very happy for Connelly! He is going to make Drag racings version of the Chase! He is up to 14th already, and charging hard!

[Robertdjr]

Seems like a lot of history is being made this year in the NHRA. Yesterday we had for the first time two women facing off against each other in Funny Cars with Melanie defeating Ashley. Pretty cool. And I know the show is taped and shown later, at least here where I live it is, but I've gotta say, the NHRA is more fun to watch than NASCAR this year by a quarter mile

[Phils20]

Agreed. I hope they never get as big as NASCAR, because then they will have to start compromising themselves, as NASCAR has done.

I never miss the racing, and plan on hitting a couple of live events this year!

Maple Grove and English town are on my calender!