NASCAR fans often refer to their favorites by their numbers rather than by name or sponsors.  That’s never been the case in drag racing, where the car numbers are almost downplayed. But, when Mike Ashley and Melanie Troxel’s cars came to the starting line yesterday one couldn’t help but notice the massive car numbers that were on display on the back of everyone’s uniforms as well as on the leading edge of the two Dodge’s roofs.  We caught up with Ashley to ask him about it.

“I’ve never been like a follow-the-leader guy.  I’ve always been like the leader and then hoped people would follow me.  I like to do things the way I see them.  I think our sport fell into these paradigms, these habits that that’s the way it is.  You get these uniforms, and you go up (to the starting line) with skulls or whatever’s on them and that’s it.  I kind of felt like this is a sport and it takes a team to win or lose these things.  If you look at other sports you see jerseys in those sports, and I felt like I wanted to unite or people into a real team.

Mike Ashley's playing a numbers game in 2008.

NASCAR fans often refer to their favorites by their numbers rather than by name or sponsors.  That’s never been the case in drag racing, where the car numbers are almost downplayed. But, when Mike Ashley and Melanie Troxel’s cars came to the starting line yesterday one couldn’t help but notice the massive car numbers that were on display on the back of everyone’s uniforms as well as on the leading edge of the two Dodge’s roofs.  We caught up with Ashley to ask him about it.

“I’ve never been like a follow-the-leader guy.  I’ve always been like the leader and then hoped people would follow me.  I like to do things the way I see them.  I think our sport fell into these paradigms, these habits that that’s the way it is.  You get these uniforms, and you go up (to the starting line) with skulls or whatever’s on them and that’s it.  I kind of felt like this is a sport and it takes a team to win or lose these things.  If you look at other sports you see jerseys in those sports, and I felt like I wanted to unite or people into a real team.

“There were a couple of reasons I did it.  One of them is that I’ve got two teams. I don’t have a Team 1 or a Team 2, or an A Team or a B Team.  I’ve got one team with two cars, so I thought if we put our jerseys together and made them all look the same, and then just had the representative driver’s name on the back it would bring unity to the entire thing.  The second thing is that it’s different.  It’s just the next step.  I thought that there was no real value in the look of the uniforms the way they were before whether it was on TV or off TV.  I just didn’t think they brought any brand value, so we decided to do this.  Actually, so far people kind of like them.”

Frank Hawley is expected to take over the driving chores on this Mike Ashley Funny Car.

Competition Plus:  What are your expectations for Melanie Troxel this year?

Ashley:  I think Melanie’s proven that she’s an excellent driver.  I think she’s got the natural instincts to be able to drive.  Yesterday she went right down the track in that car, so the expectation is that, on the race track, she’ll be able to perform very, very well.  She’s good on the Tree, she’s good at driving the car, she’s got really great instincts.

Off the track she brings the kind of professionalism and character that I want on my team, especially as I try to build this into a major organization and bring in sponsors and partnerships.

I expect that she’ll definitely make the Countdown and contend and that we’ll be in the thick of it through the final races.

CP:  How many races are you going to run personally this year?

Ashley: If you look at what’s going on in the mortgage industry, I’ve been through a crisis before where I lost my business because I didn’t pay attention to it.  I won’t go through that again.  I owe it to my family not to do that again.  I’m focused on my mortgage business this year (Lend America).  As much as I love driving and being out here it’s like torture for me to know that I’m not going to race the whole season.  I might race six races.  I’ll probably defend the titles at the races I won last year, so that means Norwalk and Indy, and some others, until we get some funding to run them all.

CP: Will Todd Veney (recently hired from National Dragster) drive at the other races?

Ashley: Frank Hawley will drive the car.  Todd will start to test in the car during testing sessions.  We’re going to get Todd his license and then we’ll see where that goes from there.

CP:  Other than the races that you won, how many others might you compete in?

Ashley: Right now, already on the slate, are Gainesville, Atlanta, Englishtown, Indy, Norwalk and back here at Pomona.  Six races.

CP:  Are you bummed about this?

Ashley: Yes, I am. I’m bummed about it, but I’m excited about my role as a team owner.  This partnership with Roger Burgess of Pro Care RX is terrific because he’s got the same kind of commitment to excellence that I do.  He wants to build a major drag racing organization, and that means creating our own path.  We’ll do things differently, just like the uniform jerseys.  Like a lot of the things on our car that Chuck Haase built.  They’re different, and we think we can be successful at it.

CP:  From the businessman’s perspective, what’s your take on the HD Partners acquisition falling to go through?

Ashley:  I was totally shocked.  I could not believe that that deal did not go through.  I thought NHRA was perfect for a SPAC like that, especially with an acquisition corporation that was put together just to look for something like (purchasing NHRA).  I agree that NHRA is probably one of the most untapped assets out there right now.  It’s really just wanting to go to the next level, and I thought that that acquisition would be huge.  Why did it fall apart?  The only thing I can think of is maybe the uneasiness in the (stock) market, with the country maybe facing recession.  Maybe with real estate values going down and the values placed on (the NHRA properties) also going down I thought that the investors would have a level of security based on those properties.  Maybe that brought them to the point where they thought, You know what?  We don’t have that safety net.  The real estate values won’t be there, so…