An NHRA official release stated that Troxel and Gary Scelzi were disqualified from the event after officials discovered loose ballast in their cars following their qualifying runs.
Troxel’s team owner Mike Ashley sold his interest in the Gotham City Racing nitro Funny Car team to his partner, ProCare Rx Chairman and CEO Roger Burgess. Citing the exponential growth of Lend America and the desire to spend more time with his family, Ashley said he made the tough decision to do what he thought was best for the team.
"Right now, Lend America is growing explosively. We moved into a new location, added hundreds of new employees, and this past month we were approved to issue Ginnie Mae government mortgage-backed securities -- bundles of mortgages sold to investors and backed by the federal government," Ashley said.
"I've got to think about my responsibilities to my family and to the hundreds of employees of lend America, and stay focused on that. I'd already made the decision not to race any more this season, and, after Englishtown, Roger and I discussed his desire to be more involved in the daily operation of the team. I though it was the best solution for both Roger and me, as well as the entire team," Ashley said.
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Greg Anderson earned his fourth win of the season and 55th of his career in his Summit Racing Pontiac GXP when local favorite Larry Morgan had a red-light start in the final in his Lucas Oil Dodge Stratus.
“We got ’er done and made amends for last night (runner-up in K&N Horsepower Challenge) and racked up some precious POWERade points and got a little bit of money to go with and probably made our sponsor fairly happy, too,” said Anderson, who beat Mike Edwards, Jason Line and Greg Stanfield in the first three rounds. “I would love to have the No. 1 spot (heading into the Countdown to 1); it’s worth 20 points. That’s really the goal. We haven’t done too well up until the last couple of weekends. We’ve got a great race team, and we’ve kind of been getting shown the way home this year, but it looks like we’re making a recovery. It sure feels good to come to a race with a chance to win, and for the last couple of months, we didn’t have too good of a chance to win and needed a miracle. I think we’re back in the fight, and we’re going to keep swinging out there, trying to make it better by the time we get to the Countdown.”
Over the first eleven races of the season, ACDelco Cobalt racer Kurt Johnson worked his way to the POWERade championship points lead by consistently qualifying in the top half of the field and going rounds on race day. Entering Sunday’s final eliminations of the Summit Racing Equipment Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio, the second-generation racer seemed ready to continue this trend, having captured the fifth starting position.
Unfortunately, despite making a competitive 6.719-second, 206.48 mph run in the opening stanza, Johnson was among the six members of the POWERade Top Ten who did not advance to the second round, as his opponent, Greg Stanfield used a slight starting line advantage and a 6.731-second, 204.79 mph pass to narrowly edge KJ at the line.
“What can I say? It was a drag race. I shook the tires and was two hundredths slower off the line than he was, and he got us by seven thousandths at the stripe. If we had been able to correct either one, we could have resolved the issue we had with the win light not coming on in our lane.
“It’s tough any time qualifying is cut short. We ran fair on our first run down the racetrack yesterday afternoon, but were off on each of next two runs, including the first round today. I had my best light of the weekend in the first round, and we were consistent, but just needed to be a little better.
“We need to do some testing with this ACDelco Cobalt. We tried in Chicago, but were rained out after only two runs. We then went to Englishtown with some different components on the car and felt we could have won that race if it hadn’t dead-headed going into fourth gear in the semifinals.
“We then came here and started off well, but then our evil race car reared its head again. We need to get our ACDelco Cobalt back to running and winning consistently. We’ve won a couple races and done pretty well lately, but that’s all behind us. It’s time to regroup.”