Event Recap
Leah Pruett, driver of the Rush Truck Centers Top Fuel Dragster:
- Earned No. 16 provisional qualifying position in Q1 on Friday (15.426 ET at 38.87 mph)
- Earned No. 1 provisional qualifying position in Q2 on Friday (3.745 ET at 322.42 mph). Q2 also served as Round 1 of the NHRA New England Nationals that were delayed in Epping, New Hampshire due to rain.
- Round 1: 3.745 ET at 322.42 mph, defeated Doug Kalitta (3.764 ET at 319.22 mph)
- Scored three bonus points for quickest run of the session
- Maintained No. 1 qualifying position based off of Friday’s Q2 run. In Q3 on Saturday, Pruett ran a 3.894 ET at 298.47 mph. Q3 also served as Round 2 of the NHRA New England Nationals.
- Round 2: 3.894 ET at 298.47 mph, lost to Mike Salinas (3.848 ET at 322.58 mph)
- Secured No. 1 qualifying position based off Friday’s Q2 run. In Q4 on Saturday, Pruett ran a 3.815 ET at 317.87 mph.
- NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals Round 1: 3.824 ET (mph malfunction), lost to Spencer Massey (3.781 ET at 325.77 mph)
- Currently tied with Brown for fifth in the Top Fuel championship standings, 134 points behind Top Fuel leader Justin Ashley
Pruett earned her first No. 1 qualifier of the season, which marked the 14th of her career. It was also her first No. 1 qualifier at Bristol Dragway. Friday’s provisional No. 1 qualifier was the second of the season, following a provisional No. 1 qualifier in the last event at the NHRA New England Nationals.
Leah Pruett, Driver of the Rush Truck Centers Top Fuel Dragster:
We might be going 320 plus miles per hour, but that run was slow motion. I was in as shallow as possible trying to go for that low ET (elapsed time) Sunday morning. About half track, I could tell the car wasn’t charging hard, but wasn’t spinning, so I stayed with it. Then I saw Spencer (Massey) out in front of me and pull away. I was taking it to the finish line and only got one parachute out, which made for a wildly bumpy ride. Bristol has been pretty brutal to us points-wise today. It’s unfortunate we weren’t able to take our Rush Truck Centers dragster further into eliminations. Sometimes you’re the window, sometimes you’re the bug and we’ve been the bug lately for too long. Every round is pretty much a UFC match, whether people racing are full-time or part-time. I look forward to running Spencer again as he’s always a class act, but for now we’ll be getting straight to work finding the culprit of these randomly dropped cylinders.”
Next Up: The next event on the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series schedule is the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals June 23-25 at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio.
