NHRA POWERade Top Fuel points leader Melanie Troxel continued to make drag racing history at Las Vegas. The star lady racer won her second career Top Fuel title but most notably her final round appearance was her 6th straight (dating back to last years AAA Auto Club Finals) – a NHRA record for Top Fuel. Troxel, driving her Skull Gear/Torco Race Fuels dragster, knocks off recent ACDelco Gatornationals Champion David Grubnic in the final. The championship showdown is exciting with Grubnic leading early before spinning his tires. But then it is Melanie who must hang on at the top end when her car falters and Grubnic almost runs her down.

Prior to the final round Melanie had handily defeated David Baca, Morgan Lucas and Doug Kalitta. At the event, Kalitta was behind the wheel of a special edition Mac Tools dragster in conjunction with Chip Foose from TV Learning Channel’s Overhaulin’ program.

Round one of Pro class racing at Las Vegas includes some big time upsets. In a rather rare development -- all the pole qualified cars, Tony Schumacher (Top Fuel), Robert Hight (Funny Car) and Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) were sent packing in the first frame.

Defending POWERade World Champion Tony Schumacher’s U.S. Army dragster was slain by former TAD driver Alan Bradshaw, new driver for car owner Bill Miller. The Schumacher team rather inexplicably chose the suspect right lane and that proved to be a downfall as their car smoked its tires hard early which allowed Bradshaw to sprint to a 4.685 secs 318.24 mph win light.

Top Fuel qualifying action included a rather inspiring performance from Utah’s Mike Strasburg who ran a career best 4.631 secs at 330.15 mph to qualify #15. Strasburg however lost out to Larry Dixon’s Miller Lite dragster in round one.

In Funny Car it was Cruz Pedregon ending a long-time class drought as he wheeled his Advance Auto Parts Chevy Monte Carlo to victory, upending current POWERade points leader Ron Capps in the final round. Both Pedregon and Capps lost traction in the event championship run but Cruz was able to recover first to win an exciting 5.417 secs 266.16 mph to 6.474 secs 229.31 mph decision. The victory was Pedregon’s first since winning at NHRA Englishtown in 2000.

Capps runner-up finish, driving his Ed McCulloch tuned Brut-sponsored Dodge Stratus, increased his overall POWERade points margin to 105 over John Force.

FC round one saw pole sitter (4.702 secs) Robert Hight fall to #16 qualifier Tony Bartone. Hight jumped to an early lead but then had the supercharger of his AAA Auto Club Mustang explode for the 2nd time during the event.

Other class oddities included a DNQ effort from the usually steady Tony Pedregon and a early exit for defending POWERade FC World Champion Gary Scelzi. Pedregon’s Quaker State-sponsored team had run a 4.799 secs on Friday night but elected to by-pass the scales following that run – which nullified it. Their subsequent efforts on Saturday did not produce a run quicker then the 4.870 secs it took to qualify. Gary Scelzi had tire spin issues with his spectacular new Oakley/Mopar ‘06 Dodge Charger throughout. They had only one successful run during time trails (a 4.813 secs) to qualify 12th. The car shook again in round one and Gary lost out to a resurging Tommy Johnson Jr who went on to a strong “final four” finish in the FC class.

Pro Stock racing saw Greg Anderson lead the way during qualifying with a 6.787 secs run (low ET). But Anderson too bowed out in round one when he lost on a holeshot to Greg Stanfield, 6.817 secs to 6.801 secs.

After that it was ACDelco team driver Kurt Johnson who was the newsmaker. Johnson made a huge turn in 2006 season fortunes to win the event. “KJ” faced off with a quick leaving David Connolly in the PS final. Connolly had advanced to the final following 3-straight holeshot round wins and he cut a .006 RT in the final. However Connolly’s Skull Gear Chevy Colbalt was just nipped by Johnson at the stripe, 6.842 secs to 6.874 secs.

Kurt’s father Warren Johnson set top speed in Pro Stock at 203.49 mph but lost out to Mark Pawuk in round one. Pawuk was driving a 2nd Valvoline-sponsored Chevy Colbalt borrowed from Ron Krisher for the event after Pawuk recently sold his Pontiac GTO. Ironically, car owner Krisher was a DNQ at the event in the primary Valvoline car.

The highly competitive Top Alcohol racing programs produced some first time NHRA national event winners with California-based drivers Ron August Jr and Sean O’Bannon prevailing.

August won the TAFC show driving his sensational looking Chevy Camaro as he combined a .007 RT with a run of 5.732 secs at 253.18 mph to upset Cy Chesterman in the final round. August’s win came over 24 other TAFC event entries.

Jay Payne had earned low ET (5.601 secs) and top speed (258.62 mph) in earlier TAFC action driving his Valvoline-sponsored machine.

2nd generation driver Sean O’Bannon, son to Jack O’Bannon, was dominate while winning TAD. He won from the pole (5.385 secs) and then served up both low ET (5.382) and top speed (267.80 mph) driving his supercharged alcohol car. O’Bannon beat Oregon’s Steve Federlin in a good title bout: 5.454 secs 266.32 mph to 5.495 secs 261.02 mph.

Sportsman drag racing action at Las Vegas was highlighted by Mopar brand racers. Steve Wann successfully defended his 2005 SummitRacing.com Stock eliminator title when he won again driving his now A/SA-classed ’70 GTX in Stock. Wann defeated another Mopar (driven by Gene Mosbek) in that final.

The Super Stock title produced a rare win for a temperamental SS/AA-classed car as Bob Mazzolini won driving his Hemi-powered ’68 Barracuda. Mazzolini ran down the SS/BS Pontiac of Jimmy DeFrank in that final round.

Tom Mettler won his first career event in Competition eliminator driving his Dodge Dakota Pro Stock Truck. In yet another all Mopar final round, Mettler ran a 7.606 at 177.95 mph to beat the 4-cylinder G/EA of New Jersey’s Frank Aragona Jr.