- Leah Pruett doesn’t look like she took two years off from the Dodge Top Fuel dragster cockpit with another strong march to the final round Sunday at the NHRA New England Nationals
- Driving the 12,000-horsepower Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) Dodge Top Fueler, Pruett qualified No. 2 and drove past Scott Farley, Maddie Gordon and Billy Torrance to the final round
- However, just as the Arizona racer was set to go up against current NHRA Mission points leader Shawn Langdon in the final, afternoon rain hit the track and the race was postponed
- Pruett and Langdon will now face each other in the final round this Friday (June 12) as part of the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol, Tenn., the ninth race in the 20-event series
- Pruett continued her amazing consistency with her Neal Strausbaugh and Mike Domagala-tuned nitro-burning car with runs of 3.712, 3.764, 3.770 and 3.776 in qualifying and eliminations
- After nearly winning the 2023 NHRA Top Fuel world title, Pruett sat out two seasons to start a family with husband Stewart, but her recent performances showed she hasn’t missed a beat
- Pruett, ranking third in the current NHRA Mission Top Fuel points standings, seeks to win twice at Bristol with the Epping final race on Friday and the Bristol eliminations on Sunday
- Matt Hagan, Pruett’s TSR Dodge teammate, attempted to add another New England Nationals trophy in the Funny Car division with his TSR Dodge//SRT Hellcat after qualifying seventh
- Hagan, seeking his fifth New England Nationals win, had a tough chore of taking on former NHRA world champions with races against Del Worsham and Jack Beckman
- Hagan advanced to the quarterfinals when Worsham left the starting line early causing a red light and took on Beckman with a chance to advance to another Epping semifinal round
- The Virginia driver took the starting line margin over Beckman, but the California driver drove past Hagan with a solid 3.942 to Matt’s 4.020 and advanced to the final round Sunday
- TSR team owner Stewart, driving the R+L Carriers/Elite Motorsports Top Fuel dragster, lost in the opening round of eliminations to Maddie Gordon when his car lost traction at mid-track
Pruett, the 38-year-old veteran driver from Arizona, came close to winning the 2023 NHRA Mission world championship before sitting out two years to start a family with her husband Stewart, who drove her Dodge Top Fueler while Leah was concentrating on being a mother for son Dominic.
But there is no doubt Pruett has settled back into her customary role as one of the top drag racing stars in the world, and this weekend at the New England Dragway proved it with her run to the final round before rain hit the racing surface and postponed the event. Pruett will face current NHRA Mission Top Fuel points leader Shawn Langdon in the New England final this Friday (June 12) at Bristol, Tenn., at the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals.
Pruett’s road to the final started Friday night with a stellar 3.712 run, just missing the coveted top qualifier spot by three-thousands of a second to Langdon. In the opening round of eliminations, Pruett, from the No. 2 starting position, continued her consistent runs with an easy win over Scott Farley with a 3.776, followed by a victory over popular rookie driver Maddie Gordon.
In a tough matchup against Billy Torrence in the semifinals, Pruett posted a 3.770 to the Texas driver’s 3.826. That triumph gave Leah her second final round appearance of the season after taking a runner-up finish to Langdon at Phoenix in March. Regardless of the New England Nationals finish at Bristol this Friday, Pruett remains in the third slot in the NHRA Mission Top Fuel points after nine events in the 20-race national campaign. Pruett’s best season-end placing was third in 2023.
“It’s going to be a week of anticipation trying to wrap up the final round for Epping, but we kicked off this race weekend in great fashion,” said Pruett. “We missed the No. 1 qualifier by just a little bit. Anything can happen on Sunday; first round we needed to make sure that we got down the track. Moving on to E2, I was clearly really hoping to run Tony today [in the second round] based on the ladder. It was a super bummer to see him go out of eliminations in front of me. When that happens for me, it makes me want it even more.
“For me now, my journey is consistently being the best, lightest-staged driver that I can every single round, is my goal. That’s what’s gotten us to the point. The motto of our team is ‘One Team, All Team,’ and consistency is key. That’s how we got to the final today. Watching the weather, tuning towards this final round, for the crew chiefs was a little bit exhausting. The weather front is coming in and out. So, we get to refresh our brains. We all joke, we should run this final off the trailer, Q1 at Bristol. So obviously we’re pumped.”
Four-time NHRA Funny Car world champion Matt Hagan, Pruett’s TSR Dodge teammate, was seeking his fifth New England Nationals race win Sunday after taking his TSR Dodge//SRT Hellcat to the seventh starting position in the 16-car lineup.
Ranked in the top five in NHRA Mission Funny Car standings, Hagan had the difficult task of taking on former world champions in the opening two rounds of eliminations against Del Worsham (round one) and Jack Beckman in the quarterfinals. In addition, the traction on the racing surface was tricky and a huge amount of pollen was in the air and on the track.
The Virginia driver had a quick win against Worsham when the California driver started too soon and posted a red light which gave Hagan the automatic advancement to the next round against long-time rival Beckman. In that round, Hagan had the advantage early with a quicker reaction time but his time of 4.020 wasn’t enough to defeat Beckman’s 3.943.
I’ve never seen so much pollen in one place,” Hagan explained. “It was unreal on the race track. You could see the layer of it. Kind of made you scratch your head a bit and think, is it going to be slick or sandy or something else. We went up there first round and just had a little bit more HEMI® horsepower than we expected. Luckily, we got a gift from Del Worsham when he went red. He’s a great driver, a champion, and I have a lot of respect for him. It was definitely wild to see him red light and then hit cones as well. He wasn’t alone that first round, I think eight or nine cones got hit.
“In the second round, we went up there and we just got beat. It was a good drag race, and we were just on the backside of it. Those John Force Racing cars (Beckman and Jordan Vandergriff) are really running well over there, but like [crew chief] Phil Shuler has said, ‘We have to sweep our own porch and focus on what we have, and not what everybody else is doing.’ I think we are just fine. So, we move on to Bristol and try to get it done close to home.”
Piloting the R+L Carriers/Elite Motorsports Top Fuel dragster, TSR team owner Tony Stewart lost traction in his nitro machine in the first round of eliminations Sunday and failed to advance to the quarterfinals against Gordon. Despite the first-round loss, Stewart remains in the top five in the current NHRA Mission Top Fuel standings heading the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals this weekend (June 12-14).
Pruett, Hagan and Stewart will continue nitro action for the third consecutive week at the famed Bristol racing facility when qualifying opens this Friday (June 12) at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. EDT, with Saturday’s qualifying sessions set for 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. EDT. Final eliminations will begin at 12 p.m. EDT on Sunday (June 14). The Fox Sports 1 broadcast will be shown Sunday at 3 p.m. EDT/12 p.m. PDT.
For more information on NHRA, visit NHRA.com.
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The @DodgeMoparMotorsports Instagram channel continues to share content capturing Dodge//SRT Mopar® drivers on the track. Fans can see action from the NHRA Mission Drag Racing Series and NHRA Sportsman grassroots racers, competing in classes such as Factory Stock Showdown, Stock and Super Stock, as well as additional motorsports series.
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The post Pruett Drives TSR Dodge Top Fuel Dragster to Final Round at New England Nationals Before Rain Halts Action, Hagan Drives Dodge//SRT Hellcat to Quarterfinals appeared first on Matt Hagan Racing.
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