Hillary Will became the 11th woman in NHRA history to win a national event when she raced to the win in the Top Fuel class at the O’Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals. John Force and Ron Krisher also won in their respective categories at Heartland Park Topeka.
TOP FUEL
Will drove her KB dragster to a 4.744-second run at 304.53 mph, which was just enough to get past No. 1 qualifier Larry Dixon and pick up her first win.
Will’s KB Racing, LLC team’s, led by crew chief Jim Oberhofer and co-crew chief Troy Fasching, last trip to the finals was at the event in Memphis in 2006. The event in Topeka was the 55th NHRA national event of Will’s career.
“Words can’t describe how I feel right now,” Will, a 28-year old native of Fortuna, Calif., said. “I have dreamed of this day for so long, and it’s finally here. My KB racing, LLC team is awesome. They’ve given me such a great race car all year long, and I can’t thank them and my team owners Ken Black and Kenny Black enough for everything that they have done for me and this wonderful opportunity.
“We knew we had everything to win, and today everything went our way. Thank you to all of our sponsors and everyone who has supported us and stuck with us. Now that we have gotten a win, I’m sure it’s just going to make us hungrier for more.
“This is definitely the year of the woman racer. It’s an honor for me to be mentioned with all of the great women who have raced and won.”
This is third time Dixon has qualified No. 1 here in Topeka and the other two years he went on to win the Top Fuel championships. Since there were only 15 Top Fuel dragsters, for only the second time in Dixon's career he had a bye in the first round of eliminations.
In the second round Dixon’s 4.691/302.14 took the win over Brandon Bernstein’s 4.698/309.70. A 4.787/302.01 over Antron Brown’s 5.079/236.01 gave Dixon lane choice in the final round.
Melanie Troxel, who got her first win two weeks earlier at Bristol got to the quarterfinal round. The ProCare Rx Funny Car driver defeated Jack Beckman in the first round, and lost a close race to Ron Capps in round two.
Defending POWERade Series world champion Tony Schumacher strengthened his points lead with a first round win over Alan Bradshaw. The five-time world champion has a 109-point cushion over second place Antron Brown.