Megan Meyer revisited her favorite drag strip in the country, zMax Dragway, in Charlotte, North Carolina for the NHRA Carolina Nationals on October 12-14th, 2018. Megan has previously won twice at zMax in the spring for the NGK Spark Plugs 4-Wide Nationals, but never held a podium finish at the fall event, until now.

 

This was the first event at Charlotte for Julie Nataas, Megan’s teammate on the Randy Meyer Racing Team. Julie qualified eighth in the 16-car field with a 5.33 ET at 276 mph and took out Dan Page in the first round of eliminations. Megan qualified third with a 5.26 ET, then posted low elapsed time of the event in round one with a 5.200 ET at 283 mph to defeat Tiffany Januik.

 

 

In round two, Julie met up with reigning World Champion Joey Severance, but left the starting too quick and fouled out. Megan was on the victorious side of a foul start against Tom Fox Jr. and went on to defeat Justin Ashley in the semi-finals. Megan light up the scoreboard with the top speed of the event, a 5.23 ET at 283.85 mph, also resetting her personal best mph.

 

The second-generation driver faced off with Joey Severance in the final round. Joey and Megan have each won two times against each other in prior events. Joey was in the lead until he had problems at half-track as Megan chased him down. As soon as she took the lead, she then had problems but held on for her fifth National event career win. Megan is now tied with Ashley Force as the winningest female driver in the Top Alcohol Dragster category.


“I am so proud of my crew for taking this NGK dragster all the way to the finals again at zMax,” said Megan. “The guys, and Julie, worked hard to prepare this car to go up against some heavy hitters, and we knew we had to give it our all to face Joey Severance in the finals. We had incredible weather and track conditions all weekend with low temperatures, which gave us the perfect set up to run in the low 5.20s.”

“I kept thinking in my head while sitting in the staging lanes that the final round was going to be my last pass of the year at a National event. I was trying to relax as best I could and not to get too anxious while watching the Funny Car finals and seeing all the chaos on the starting line. I stuck to my routine and focused on the track and did my job as a driver. We got very lucky that Joey also had problems, I’m not sure why our car lost 7 cylinders at the end but I’m thankful that it happened close to the finish line and we had just enough room to get the win.”

 

With this win, Megan has jumped up to third place in the National points series. She will compete in St. Louis next weekend with her sister Rachel for the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series North Central where she can clinch the Regional Championship.

 

The Carolina Nationals will air on FS2, October 25th 8-9pm ET and on FS1, October 27th 9-10pm ET.