Mike Neff Hoping To Regain Funny Car Magic At Bristol Dragway

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – The setting was ripe with drama last May at Bristol Dragway.
After a long and soggy day, Funny Car rookie Mike Neff was matched against Melanie Troxel in the finals of the eighth annual National Hot Rod Association Thunder Valley Nationals.

Troxel escaped with a smoky slice of history. Meanwhile, Neff is still explaining the nightmarish scenario with his John Force Racing Ford Mustang.

“Everywhere we go, my fans always want to ask me about what happened to my car at Bristol,” Neff said. “I’ve told that story about a thousand times.”

Neff rehashed his saga of success and heartbreak again Tuesday during a press conference promoting the May 15-17 Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol.

Boosted by his first-ever No. 1 qualifying effort, Neff defeated Tony Bartone, Ron Capps and teammate Robert Hight en route to the fateful battle in the final round against Troxel.

The story began to get wild when Neff backed his car to the starting line after executing a burnout.

“On our car, you have to activate the switches to turn on the clutch timer, fuel timer and all that,” Neff said. “When you hit the gas, it sets off a series of events that make all that take place.”

With famed team owner John Force looking on, Neff’s anxiety level rose when his crew was unable to lift the body of his car to reach the vital switches.
The clock was approaching midnight in more ways than one.

“We were in the heat of battle, and it seemed like we had been there at all night with the rain,” Neff said.

Without access to the switches on his car, Neff knew he was in big trouble.

“It was more a less a suicide mission because the car was only going to go probably 300-400 feet before it actually blew up,” Neff said. “We decided to run the car anyway.”

Just as he feared, Neff’s vision of a signature victory exploded in flames at the 400 foot mark. Troxel experienced traction problems with her car but managed to backpedal her way to victory in a time of 5.06 seconds at 310.27-miles per hour.

“It was unfortunate because we were running really good and Melanie was having troubles,” Neff said. “We gave it a try, though.”

Troxel became just the 14th different driver, and the first woman, to win in both the NHRA Funny Car and Top Fuel class. Troxel also became the first woman in Bristol Dragway history to capture a Funny Car title, and only the second in NHRA history to win in the class.
Neff ended the season ninth in Funny Car points, with three runner-up finishes.

Entering next weekend’s event at Bristol Dragway, Neff is 10th in the NHRA Full Throttle Series Funny Car standings. Meanwhile, Troxel has been without a ride all season due to a lack of sponsorship on her Mike Ashley owned team.

Despite his misfortune from last year, Neff smiled when asked about his return to Bristol Dragway.

“I’ve got a lot of good memories of Thunder Valley,” Neff said. “We won this race a few years ago when I was crew chief for Gary Scelzi.”

Bristol Motor Speedway general manager Jeff Byrd said Wednesday that tickets sales have been “good” for next week’s event.

“I’ve been encouraged by the car count at some of the recent [NHRA] events, and it will be interesting to see the cars race 1,000 foot here as opposed to quarter-mile for the first time,” Byrd said.
In a safety measure last year, NHRA officials decided to reduce the distance of races for Funny Car and Top Fuel cars from the traditional 1,320-foot standard to 1,000 feet.

agregory@bristolnews.com|(276) 645-2544