Over a recent four day period of testing and racing at the Canadian Nitro Nationals, held at Toronto Motorsports Park in Cayuga, Ontario, Melanie Simmons Salemi put together a string of twelve runs all within .050 seconds of each other. The consistency of her Delta backed dragster can be attributed to her father, Roger Simmons and her husband, Jon Salemi (Resolution Racing Services) but, they’re not the ones who were behind the wheel putting up reaction time numbers within .011 seconds of each other; all weekend.

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Add together consistent elapsed times with a driver in her zone and it equals the first event win of 2013 for the Toyrific team of Simmons Salemi. This is what myself and my team have been striving for. I knew we were capable but we just needed to hit our stride, said driver, Melanie Simmons Salemi.

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Melanie qualified her blown Alcohol Injected Dragster in the fourth position with a 6.62 second 202 mph blast down the quarter mile strip for the Quick 32 Sportsman Series presented by NAPA Auto Parts which is comprised of 16 Top Dragsters and 16 Top Sportsman cars. After qualifying Melanie was able to defeat Spencer Hyde, of Stratford, ON, in round one, fellow Orillia native, Gord Cooke in round two, Shakespear, Ontario’s Travis Gueguen in round three an completed her sweep of the dragster side by defeating Mike Kalin of Niagara Falls, NY.

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The win over Kalin paired Melanie against multi-time series champion, Kevin Wicke. Wicke had some impressive reaction time numbers throughout eliminations and continued so in the finals with a .012 reaction time to Melanie’s .023 but, in bracket racing it’s all about the combined package and dial in. (A racer must predict the performance of their machine and then run as close to that number without going under it, combined with a near perfect reaction time in order to take the win.) Wicke dialed a 6.82 and Melanie dialed a 6.64. Wicke had a better reaction time but ran .06 off his dial while Salemi was just .02 off her dial and first to the stripe.

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You couldn’t have asked for a better weekend for it all to come together for the Toyrific team based in Orillia, Ontario, Canada/Buffalo, NY.  The Canadian Nitro Nationals is the largest event held in Southern Ontario each year. With the stands and their pit area filled with family, friends and team supporters all weekend long the volunteer/family crew kept their cool under the pressure.

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It takes a huge amount of sacrifice and hard work to make this all happen. I could never do it without my family and of course all of my great sponsors, said Simmons Salemi. This one was for them, she added.

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The win placed the team third in the Quick 32 Sportsman Series Championship Point Award Series.

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Visit  www.toyrificracing.com, www.Quick32.ca or follow Toyrific Racing on Facebook and Twitter.

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