It must have felt a bit like proving themselves all over again.

In 2006, Melanie Troxel reached a stunning nine final rounds with two wins in her first year of full-time competition in Top Fuel, which gave her a fourth-place finish for the year. She followed with another two-win season in 2007, firmly establishing herself as a contender in Top Fuel.

Meanwhile, Dave Connolly, one of the youngest drivers on the NHRA POWERade Series Pro Stock circuit, quickly picked up a good reputation as one of the fastest leavers at the starting line – drawing comparisons to established starting-line dominator Jeg Coughlin. After finishing 18th in the points in his first season on the road, Connolly turned in four consecutive top-five finishes – three of which were third-place seasons.

But after having established themselves, Troxel and Connolly found themselves literally at the starting line all over again a quarter of the way into the 2008 season – Troxel slowed by the transition to Funny Car and Connolly by sponsorship woes.

The two had combined for only three round-wins through the first seven races of 2008 and were afterthoughts in the championship race, but that all changed May 18 at the O’Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals presented by Q as Troxel and Connolly raced back to the winner's circle to re-establish themselves as drivers to be reckoned with.

(Above) Melanie Troxel's first Funny Car win in Bristol boosted her bid to make the Countdown's top 10. (Below) She shared the win with crew chief Brian Corradi, center, and team owner Mike Ashley.

But they still have work to do if they hope to secure one of the 10 playoff spots in each class – Troxel is in 15th place; Connolly is in 14th place – and that work begins May 30-June 1 as the NHRA POWERade Series tour goes to Heartland Park Topeka for the 20th annual O’Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals presented by Castrol GTX, the ninth of 24 events and the halfway point of the regular season. After Topeka, drivers have nine more races to crack the top 10 before the Countdown to the Championship playoff season begins.

Both Troxel and Connolly come to Topeka fresh off of their first wins of the season. For Troxel, the victory was a landmark.

After struggling through the first half of the regular season, Troxel became the second woman to win a race in Funny Car and the first woman and 14th driver overall to reach the winner’s circle in the sport’s two fastest categories, Top Fuel and Funny Car.

In 2008, Troxel made the move she had only speculated about and one her husband anticipated with more anxiety than joy – from Top Fuel to Funny Car. It was a move that made competing against her husband almost a certainty. Headlines predicted what would happen when the two halves of motorsports’ fastest couple stared each other down on the track. Johnson quipped it was “every man for himself.”

But it would be Troxel who would win first – not against Johnson, but instead against fellow Funny Car rookie Mike Neff. Neff had tuned Gary Scelzi to a Funny Car world championship in 2005 before replacing the late Eric Medlen as pilot of John Force Racing’s fourth entry in 2007.

She beat another John Force Racing driver to do it with a second-round win over Ashley Force to become the seventh Funny Car driver to win in eight races – none of whom are John Force.

Before the season began, speculation centered on which woman, Troxel or Force, would become the first to win a race in Funny Car. Force earned that honor in Atlanta, and both Force and Troxel won from the 11th qualifying spot. Troxel preferred not to look at it that way, a battle between women for all-women records in a sport where being a woman isn’t a novelty. Instead, Troxel had her sights on a gradual learning curve that she hoped would produce a win. Eight races into her first season isn’t bad, she said.

“If you had asked me at the beginning of the season how the season would be coming along if we went out and won the eighth race of the season, I would’ve said, ‘That’s great,’ ” Troxel said. “For me to make the switch to Funny Car and go out and win the eighth race, that’s definitely a very good beginning to the season.

Dave Connolly has Countdown stars in his eyes after scoring in Bristol in his second straight final-round appearance.

“I didn’t expect all of the struggling we had in the early part of the year. It’s been kind of a mixed bag of results. I’m definitely happy we won a race in the first third of the season, but that didn’t come without challenges and without struggling. We finally turned a corner, and we’re starting to see the results of that.”

Unlike Troxel’s low-to-high learning curve, Connolly’s rebound came all at once. He returned to the series in Atlanta with Charter Communications as a backer and in three races had his first win of the year, making 2008 the fifth straight season in which Connolly has won at least one race. At the same event, his teammate, Coughlin, failed to make the field for the first time in 70 events.

“It makes you appreciate everything that much more,” Connolly said. “We got pretty lucky last weekend to go to the final round [in Madison], and then to come out [to Bristol] and I’m taking cones out [at Bristol Dragway] in qualifying, and I would’ve never thought we would’ve made it to the winner's circle, but we did.”

In Top Fuel, Brandon Bernstein looks to defend his title at Heartland Park Topeka in a season that has yet to yield a win for the Budweiser prince. Tony Schumacher enters the race with a sizable lead on Antron Brown, the former Pro Stock Motorcycle rider who has already earned two victories this season.