Melanie Troxel enters Sunday’s running of the 19th annual O’Reilly Midwest Summer Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka from the No. 14 starting position with her elapsed time of 4.671 seconds, 296.37 mph that she ran in the last qualifying session on Saturday.

That really is good news for her and the Vietnam Veterans MIA/POW Top Fuel dragster team considering the hot, humid conditions that only Kansas can offer in June. There’s nothing more she likes better to do than to strap up behind the wheel of the 8,000 horsepower dragster and go for the win light and in these surroundings, the more consistent car will win the round and not necessarily the quickest in qualifying.

Troxel proved that to be true three weeks ago when she marched through the field at Gateway International Raceway in nearby St. Louis in taking her third victory of her career.

“As long as you make it into the field anyone can win on race day, ” said Troxel, who has 13 final round appearances. “It’s a little bit hot on the track surface right now. We would have like to have seen a better number than that, but It dropped a hole early in the middle of the run. So, we know there’s room for improvement there if we can just keep all eight cylinders lit until the finish line we’ll all right. With our consistency, we’re putting enough doubt in their minds and Bazemore’s team knows they can’t back down and take it easy first round tomorrow. We’ll go up there and give it our best shot and I think we have a great chance. ”

For the first time in her career, she will race Whit Bazemore, the No. 3 qualifier, in the first round of eliminations on Sunday. It will mark her 36th different driver she has met in Top Fuel competition.

The Vietnam Veterans MIA/POW team has done an about face as compared to their hot weather tune up from last year when they exerted a strong combination to a slippery surface that seemed like an invisible opponent.

“Last year we struggled with the hot air conditions and it wasn’t our best time, ” she said. “I’m hoping we’ve made some improvements in that area this year and from the way we ran in St. Louis, hopefully we’re right. We have a consistent tune up for the hot track conditions now. We want it to work in our favor tomorrow. We were going out there to improve on our 4.67 today and I think anyone who can run in the 4.60s tomorrow has a good shot of winning the race. ”

Her career record at HPT is a quarterfinals finish against Darrell Russell in 2002, first round in 2003 against Kenny Bernstein and last year she was defeated by Brandon Bernstein in the quarterfinals after being the No. 1 qualifier when she recorded a time of 4.567 seconds.

ESPN2-HD will air the final rounds of the O’Reilly Summer Nationals starting at 7 p. m. EDT on Sunday, June 3.