Joined Together in Hemi Matrimony

Team Mopar® NHRA Funny Car drivers—and married couple—Tommy Johnson Jr. and Melanie Troxel give new meaning to the term “power couple.”

Words: Darren Jacobs

It’s a tale as old as time. Man meets woman. Man and woman tie the knot. Man and woman proceed to jump into nitromethane-fueled 7,500 horsepower NHRA Funny Cars and battle each other for bragging rights at drag strips across the country on the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series.

It’s a fair assumption to say that in the history of holy wedlock, there haven’t been many marriages like that of Team Mopar® drivers Melanie Troxel and Tommy Johnson Jr. That’s because Johnson, driver of the Monster Energy Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car for Kenny Bernstein Racing, and Troxel, pilot of the R2B2 Racing Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car, go to their “office” each Sunday aware they may have to defeat the person to which they pledged “I do.”

Appropriately enough, the Mopar HEMI®-powered pair first met at the track. They have known each other for 20 years—Troxel’s father raced in the alcohol dragster division while Johnson was competing in alcohol funny car, giving the future couple a chance to get to know one another. After drifting apart for a time, the duo reconnected when Melanie started racing in the NHRA Top Fuel Series in 2000.

“She was a hard sell,” recalled Johnson. “I kept asking her out and she made me work for it a little bit.”

The two married on New Years Eve in 2003. Johnson, after competing in Top Fuel early in his career, was ensconced as a regular on the NHRA Funny Car Series. With Melanie beginning to make a name for herself in Top Fuel, the couple was spared the prospect of lining up against one another at the starting tree. The marriage still faced challenges, though, come race day.

“If you’ve had a good day, you want to temper that mood a little bit and take away a little bit from the excitement you want to feel,” explained Johnson. “Then again, if you’ve had a bad day, you kind of have to bring yourself up and not be so down because the other person had a great day. That’s been the biggest challenge we’ve had, trying to balance our emotions.”

The pair performed an excellent balancing act during the 2006 POWERade season. Both captured two wins, two No. 1 Qualifier awards and posted top 10 finishes in the points standings in their respective series. Then the next speed bump arose in their high-speed union. At the 2007 Mac Tools U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, Troxel dropped a bombshell — in 2008 she would be moving to Funny Car. She could now possibly draw her husband as an opponent. Hubby’s reaction?

“I had to put myself in her shoes and see the good opportunity she had, and you can’t fault someone for that,” Johnson said. “I’ve changed my opinion, but the first initial shock was I didn’t understand why she would want to compete in the same class. I didn’t think that was a good idea for two people to be married and have to go head-to-head against each other. I’ve since lightened my mood about it. It’s worked out, and I’ve become a fan of it.”

Troxel acknowledged the move has been difficult in a number of ways.

“I don’t know that we’ve found any positives racing in the same category yet,” said Troxel. “We used to kind of split the duties of taking care of the dogs by which class, the dragsters or funny cars, went first and break that up a little bit, and now that we’re in the same class, it gets tougher to find which one of us is going to have a chance to sneak back over to the motor home and take care of the dogs. I’d say certainly the fact that we have to compete against each other does complicate things a little bit.”

However, there is also a bright side to having a fellow racer for your better half.

“The positives are being able to travel together and compete together, doing what we love to do,” Johnson said. “It’s not one of us out on the road while the other is at home. To be able at the end of the day to not have to explain what happened at work—your spouse knows exactly what happened, they may have went through the same thing that day. There’s plenty of bonuses there.”

Some driving advice is exchanged between the marital partners—up to a point.

“We’re able to help each other. If there are some driving techniques or advice you need from one another, it’s definitely an advantage,” Johnson remarked. “You know you’ll get a straight answer from your spouse as opposed to somebody who might guide you along the wrong path. On race day we don’t talk a lot. We never talk about the cars or performance, because we are on opposite teams.”

“It’s pretty rare that we actually give each other advice,” Troxel added. “We talk a lot about the races and what the track conditions are and different things that are going on. We have to be pretty careful to avoid anything about the cars and the tune-ups, information the teams wouldn’t want shared. But, on occasion, especially since I made the transition to the Funny Car this year and had to learn a lot about its characteristics, there have been times I’ve gone to Tommy and asked his opinion about different things but, surprisingly, it doesn’t happen all that much.”

Any advice exchanged between the two has paid off. Troxel earned her first career Funny Car victory (to go with four in Top Fuel) at the NHRA Bristol event in April and also became the first female in Funny Car history to claim a No. 1 Qualifier award, at the NHRA Joliet event in June. So in addition to sharing a household the couple also shares membership in the elite circle of drivers to capture wins in both Top Fuel and Funny Car competition (only 14 drivers have done so).

However, the big test has yet to come for the HEMI-powered pair. The Johnson/Troxel dinner table conversation should be mighty interesting after the Mopar-powered companions meet in an inevitable head-to-head Sunday showdown at the drag strip.

“It’s something you try not to think about,” said Johnson. “You’ve got to run the race in your own lane. I’m sure those thoughts will creep into the back of your mind. For certain competitors out there, you dig a little deeper sometimes. I’m sure that both of us will dig a little deeper on that run. There’s just no way of getting around it.”

Troxel’s comments are remarkably similar to Johnson’s. She’ll try to think of the matchup as just one of many in the span of her career but she probably won’t succeed.

“There is really no good side to it. You might win, but then when you go back to the motor home it’s going to be awkward and strange,” Troxel forecasted. “It’s not like you really get to celebrate that. It’s not like either of us would come home and rub it in. I would have to say it would not be a smooth move to come home and gloat about it.

“I think probably the smartest way to approach any race is to go up there like the opponent doesn’t matter. But sometimes that’s easier said than done. There are different people you have rivalries with, or that you really want to beat more than others even though it shouldn’t be that way. I’ll certainly try to block that out. But, yeah, it’s kind of a double-edged sword. Neither of us wants to be the one to lose. We want to beat each other, especially that first time we come up against each other. We want to be the first one to win that matchup.”

Anything different wouldn’t be expected from elite racers like Johnson and Troxel. So as the saying goes, let the best Mopar-fueled man—or woman—win!