Madison Payne Continues to Improve at Las Vegas Regional

Madison Payne continues to get more seat time in the Muscle Milk A/Fuel dragster and with it comes more kudos from car owner Duane Shields. This weekend the team was back at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for a Lucas Oil Regional event. With 16 cars competing in an eight-car field, Madison and the team had to bring their A-game or not compete in the final eliminations as half of the entered field would go home at the end of qualifying.

After two qualifying rounds, Madison was still not in the show but during the third and final session, everyone on the Muscle Milk team was able to take a deep sigh of relief as Madison got the car into the eighth and final spot but she had to use her driving skills to do it, pedaling the dragster to a decent 5.41 at 269 MPH. "We struggled a little bit as the track was slick from the heat but Madison did a good job getting the Muscle Milk car into the field" Duane recognized.

In the first round, Madison faced number one qualifier Shawn Cowie driving an alcohol supercharged dragster. At the hit, Madison got off the starting line first with a .068 to Cowie's .083. However, at the finish line, it was Cowie taking the win with a 5.30 at 275 MPH over Madison's valiant 5.53 at 266 MPH. In spite of the loss, Madison had an optimistic attitude about the weekend. "Glad we got qualified since there were 16 good cars here for an 8 car field. We lost first round, but it was still a good weekend with the team” Madison said. Duane added "The 138-degree track temperature and the high corrected altitude of 5,300 feet was just too much and made it rather impossible for an A/Fuel dragster to match Shawn's performance in a blown alcohol car which can respond better to the heat".

Next, the team moves on to the Springnationals, the final national event to ever be contested in Houston, April 22-24. Duane and Madison would like to thank Muscle Milk, NGK Spark Plugs, GRP Connecting Rods, BAE and Clean Boost for supporting their efforts in 2022.