NHRA Four-Wide Nationals
Event No. 2 of 22
The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Las Vegas, Nev.
April 16-18, 2021
LEAH PRUETT
Mopar Dodge//SRT Top Fuel Dragster
Qualified: No. 7 (3.800 E.T. at 312.13 MPH)
The Results:
E1: 3.808 E.T. at 315.27 MPH defeated Greg Carrillo 4.107 E.T. at 223.21 MPH, Cameron Ferre 4.143 E.T. at 225.97 MPH
E2: 10.921 E.T. at 55.03 MPH defeated by Steve Torrence 3.773 E.T. at 322.04 MPH, Doug Kalitta 3.768 E.T. at 325.22 MPH
Race Recap:
Starting from the top half of the field for the fifth consecutive event (dating back to Dallas, Oct 2020), No. 7 qualifier Leah Pruett drew Steve Torrence, Greg Carrillo, and Cameron Ferre in her first elimination quad on Sunday in Vegas. Pruett was the first among her competitors to stand on the throttle and she used her starting line advantage coupled with a solid 3.808 E.T. to set off the win light and advance to round two. In the second elimination round, Pruett lined up against Torrence, Doug Kalitta, and Shawn Langdon, but her hopes for a first Four-Wide Wally went up in smoke as soon as she hit the throttle. Pruett’s machine immediately lost traction, and she was forced to click it off.
From Leah:
This was a ‘when it rains, it pours’ weekend for our Mopar Dodge//SRT team at the Four-Wide Nationals. We had a mix of problems that grew and it put us behind after qualifying. Not being able to make full pulls in the 3.70s during qualifying really put us behind the competition, and we were trying to work on the tune-up on race day and we just didn’t quite have the hot rod that we thought we had coming in here this weekend. We have a plan for the chassis moving forward and we found we were down on power and we’ll work on that and figure it out the next few weeks before Atlanta. When you’re down on power, it affects all of the other parts of the car, and when you have limited runs with just three qualifying laps, all the small details make a difference. We’ll do a 180 and when the team is on, I’m on, and we’re looking forward to regaining our momentum at the very last Atlanta race.
Photos: Mark Rebilas @rebilasphoto
Source: Don Schumacher Racing
