Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Sophomore jinx slows Top Fuel Rookie of Year

Thursday, April 4, 2002 | 11:38 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

This wasn't how Darrell Russell envisioned backing up his Rookie of the Year season.

After winning two races and finishing sixth in the NHRA Top Fuel standings last season, Russell comes into this weekend's SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals with three first-round losses and standing 13th in Top Fuel points after failing to qualify better than 12th in the first three races.

The 33-year-old Russell, who defeated Kenny Bernstein in the Top Fuel final at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last fall, is confident that his sophomore slump will be short-lived.

"We'll be up to speed soon -- I'm convinced of that," Russell said. "We won at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway late last year so we have to keep our lucky streak alive there."

Team owner Joe Amato brought in new crew chief Wayne Dupuy last month and Russell said he believes the Bilstein Engine Flush System team has the necessary ingredients to become a championship-caliber team.

"On the schedule, it was only five races ago when we won (in Las Vegas)," Russell said. "But it seems like a lifetime since that happened. We're all pretty excited right now. Wayne has brought a breath of fresh air to this team and it feels like we're heading in the right direction.

"We needed a fresh start of sorts and I can't think of a better place to begin a new chapter then Vegas. It sure proved to be a lucky racetrack for us in October; I just hope we can qualify well and start going rounds this time around. We're ready to have some fun. We've earned it."

Pedregon would replace Al Hofmann, who parted ways with the team during the Gatornationals last month in Gainesville, Fla.

Pedregon, the oldest of the three racing Pedregon brothers, drove for Dunn in 1998 and 1999.

Troxel, 29, will be in the cockpit of the Western Rock dragster for the third annual SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals. She has not competed in the NHRA since running 10 events during the 2000 season.

Troxel became the quickest and fastest female in NHRA history with runs at 4.576 seconds and 326.08 mph while driving for Schumacher Racing in 2000.

The paint schemes are a part of the Elvis Presley 25th Anniversary program and will include limited-edition die-casts by Action Performance.

"I've been wanting to do something like this for quite some time," Schumacher said. "I want to see what it's like to drive a stock car. The speedway and the Richard Petty folks were nice enough to accommodate me prior to our race weekend."

Prior to joining JFR, Densham raced Funny Cars as a privateer and used current and former students as crew members.