Fab Fast Food

Drag racing superstar Melanie Troxel will return to the Funny Car ranks in 2010 behind the wheel of the In-N-Out Burger Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car. Troxel will banner the landmark restaurant at the eight NHRA national events that take place in California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas.

The agreement resurrects a successful partnering between Troxel and In-N-Out Burger from the late 1990s that was highlighted by Troxel’s second-place finish in the 1999 Top Alcohol Dragster national standings. In two seasons, Troxel won six races for In-N-Out Burger and claimed the ‘99 Division 6 title and ‘98 Division 5 runner-up honors.

“I am so excited that In-N-Out Burger is back in drag racing,” said Lynsi Martinez of In-N-Out Burger. “My father (H. Guy Snyder) had a passion for drag racing and that passion lives in me. Drag racing has played a big role in In-N-Out’s history and it is also an important part of my family history.

“It’s great to be reunited with Melanie. She is the perfect representative for us and she’s an exceptional driver. We are looking forward to a great season. It should be very exciting for both our In-N-Out family and our customers!”

Troxel’s early triumphs with In-N-Out led to her ascension to the professional ranks midway through the 2000 season when she was selected by mega-team owner Don Schumacher to pilot the Exide Batteries Top Fuel dragster vacated by his son Tony Schumacher, who was moving over to the newly-formed U.S. Army group.

Wasting little time in impressing her peers, Troxel quickly raced to a runner-up result in Dallas and was steady enough in just 10 races to be named the Auto Club Road to the Future award winner. The accolade, now saluting the sport’s top rookie, was given to Troxel as a racer “who had the best chance to make a mark in the sport of drag racing.”

She’s been living up to that billing ever since, racing Top Fuel, Funny Car, and Pro Mod with great success. In her brief career, Troxel has raced her various hot rods to seven national event victories in 16 final-round showings. She also has four Low Qualifier awards to her credit and is known throughout the motorsports world as the quickest and fastest female racer.

“It’s very exciting to be back with In-N-Out Burger and to be racing a Funny Car again,” said Troxel, who will be tuned by veterans Lance Larson and Robb Hauser. “We had big plans with In-N-Out a decade ago and now the circumstances have come together for us to continue our partnership and move forward.

“I feel a real bond with Lynsi and her staff at In-N-Out and I really want to do well for them, both on and off the racetrack. Our team owner, Roger Burgess, has given us all the equipment we need to be successful and I think we can jump right back in the mix at Pomona. We’re all very excited to get started.”

Troxel won the Pomona race in 2006 to kick-off a record string of five straight final-round showings to start a season. The victory made her just the eighth female since 1951 to win an NHRA national event and the sixth female ever to win in the Top Fuel class. Her incredible season ended with Troxel being named Sportswoman of the Year by the Billie Jean King Foundation and her nomination for two ESPY awards (best driver and best female athlete).

Switching to Funny Car in 2008, Troxel proved just as lethal, winning the Bristol event to become just the second female in history to claim a trophy in the class.

Last year, Troxel drove a Pro Mod car for Burgess and managed to post the third quickest quarter-mile pass in history, a 5.829-second blast. She will still compete in the Pro Mod class in 2010, driving the In-N-Out Burger ‘63 Corvette at all 10 events in the NHRA Get Screened America Pro Mod Drag Racing Series.

In 1948, the first In-N-Out Burger was founded by Harry and Esther Snyder in Baldwin Park, Calif. The basic menu of burgers, fries, and drinks is still the same one customers have enjoyed since the company’s inception 62 years ago. Everything is still made fresh to order and there are no microwaves or freezers in use.

Through careful and deliberate expansion, In-N-Out Burger now features restaurants throughout California, Nevada, and Arizona. In-N-Out Burger remains privately owned and the Snyder family has no plans to take the company public or franchise any units.

http://www.motorsport.com/news/article.asp?ID=355368&FS=NHRA

The topic was baseball and the class members, foreign graduate students recently arrived in the United States to attend the University of Southern California, were befuddled.
Not only were they struggling to follow the instructor’s litany of batting and pitching rules, they were mystified by the title of the hallowed championship games. Why is it called the World Series, one Chinese student wondered aloud, if all the teams in it are from North America?
Instructor Edward Roth was both taken aback and pleased. The grandiose title might reflect America’s arrogance about its national pastime, he acknowledged, but he also praised the question. It reflected the type of cross-cultural debate he encourages in a course aimed at helping these newcomers from overseas adjust to life in Los Angeles.
Then Roth reeled off some American sayings that spring from baseball: Step up to the plate. Knock it out of the park. Get your bases covered. Don’t drop the ball.
“These are very useful English phrases and we use them quite a bit,’’ he said. The 17 students, mainly master’s degree candidates from China, dutifully took notes.
Called “The United States: An American Culture Series,’’ the USC class is an unusual semester-long effort by the university to help its international students learn about the strange food, difficult idioms, and bewildering customs that surround them.
To succeed academically, the theory goes, foreign students must also adjust culturally and socially to their new surroundings. So in Roth’s class and four similar courses by other teachers, these are some of the topics: What are tailgate parties? What are baby vegetables? To whom should you give Christmas gifts? Is it an insult to call someone a couch potato?
By semester’s end, Jingjie “Ginger’’ Li, 22, a Chinese graduate student who is studying public administration, said she felt she could interact more easily with Americans. “Everybody from outside the country gets culture shock and needs to get over that,’’ said Li. The USC course, she said, gave her topics for conversations with American classmates and, more important, “taught us to express your own opinion.’’
The university has reason to offer the free, noncredit courses in American culture. For the eighth consecutive year, USC in the last academic year enrolled the largest contingent of foreign students of any US university last year: more than 7,500, or about a fifth of its enrollment.
Final numbers for the current school year are expected to be even higher, with India the largest exporter of students to USC and China second and growing fast, officials report.
The university has recruitment offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taipei, and Tokyo, as well as in Mexico City, and it holds numerous events for prospective engineering students in India.
The culture courses began as an experiment last year with one section each semester and were expanded this fall to five sections, each meeting for two hours once a week for 12 weeks. Field trips took students to downtown Los Angeles, the California African American Museum, the Getty Center museum and, for gourmet tourism, an In-N-Out Burger drive-in. Total enrollment was about 60, mainly Chinese students with a sprinkling from India, Pakistan, and Turkey.
At USC, part of the goal is to ease international students’ isolation. Some say they feel trapped by their heavy academic loads, strong accents, shyness, and cultural confusion, while an alien universe of parties, study groups, and romances swirls about them.
Ironically, it can also be tough for many Chinese and Indian students to break out of their own national circles at USC because those groups are so large and are concentrated in engineering programs.
Electrical engineering student Fang Li, 23, said he was homesick his first few weeks at USC. He disliked American foods, except for turkey sandwiches and coffee, and lost weight. Now he is feeling better, partly because the American culture class “helped me adjust more quickly,’’ he said.
Still, he has yet to make strong friendships with Americans. He hopes to widen his circle soon and “become more familiar with the way American people think and the way they live.’’

Original article:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/01/03/usc_gets_foreign_students_up_to_speed_on_all_things_american/

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