Melanie Troxel: Our Winner!

We sure had a lot of fun at the In-N-Out Burger Foundation Golf Tournament last night. 

Let me cut right to the chase…Melanie Troxel was there (she’s the In-N-Out Burger funny car driver), and her crew won the auction.   Yep, Melanie Troxel will be riding a California Scooter!

Melanie Troxel on her new California Scooter!

I had a chance to chat with Melanie, and she’s really nice.  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I was surprised when I met her.   You just wouldn’t know that a day at the office for her means going from a standing start to over 300 mph in about 4 seconds.

I got right to the point…my first question was:  What’s it like? 

When I was a kid, the AA fuelie cars were breaking into the 7-second range and hitting 200 mph, and watching was a combination of raw terror and disbelief.  Seeing it for myself, my mind couldn’t wrap itself around accelerating to 200 mph in 7 seconds.   Even as a mere spectator, it felt like the world was coming apart.  The ground shook.  The air was electrified.  The noise was terrifying.  The Hemi headers could have been hiding old Lucifer himself, threatening the world through an octet of oxy-acetylene torches. 

And that was 40 or 50 years ago.

Now, like I said, it’s 300+ mph in 4 seconds.  I asked Melanie if it was as terrifying as it looks.  Melanie told me it wasn’t terrifying, but it sure was an adrenaline rush.  

Okay, I’ll admit it:  I would be terrified.  Melanie is a lot braver than I’ll ever be, and I wanted to know more about her…so, I found this cool YouTube video with a bit of background on Ms. Troxel, our newest California Scooter pilot…

I told Melanie our engine makes just a little under 14 horsepower (her In-N-Out funny car cranks out around 8,000 ponies), our top end is a bit over 65 mph (as mentioned above, she’ll hit over 300 mph in her funny car), but…

We get over 90 miles per gallon.  I think we have the funny car beat on that one…