Leah Pruett, driver of the Sparkling Ice +Caffeine Top Fuel Dragster:

●  Earned No. 13 provisional qualifying position in Q1 on Friday (5.956 ET at 114.25 mph).

●  Smoked the tires in Q2 on Saturday and dropped to the No. 15 qualifying position (6.465 ET at 104.78 mph).

●  Secured No. 12 qualifying position in Q3 on Saturday (3.897 ET at 314.39 mph).

●  Advanced to Semifinals on Sunday:

    ●  Round 1: 3.781 ET at 325.69 mph, defeated Antron Brown (3.796 ET at 320.81 mph).

    ●  Round 2: 3.818 ET at 322.42 mph, defeated Doug Kalitta (3.827 ET at 316.67 mph).

●  Semifinal: 6.295 ET at 107.05 mph, lost to Brittany Force (3.823 ET at 325.61 mph).

●  Currently sixth in the Top Fuel championship standings, 410 points behind leader Brittany Force.  

●  Pruett’s semifinal appearance maintained her sixth-place standing in the championship.

●  Pruett and Brittany Force faced each other for the first time in eliminations this season. Despite losing to Force in the semifinal, Pruett holds a 9-6 overall record against Force.

●  At 138 degrees Fahrenheit, Pacific Raceways in Kent, Washington, was home to the hottest track conditions the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series has endured this season.

●  The Flav-R-Pac NHRA Northwest Nationals marked a home race for Preston, Washington-based Sparkling Ice. Pruett attended two meet-and-greets with Sparkling Ice employees at the track in addition to a fan meet-and-greet on Thursday at the Fred Meyer in nearby Maple Valley.

This was one of the largest learning curves that we’ve had in a long time. We came out on the good side of things. Qualifying No. 12 wasn’t ideal, but a problem kept arising that would happen every two or three races. Saturday night before eliminations, this Sparkling Ice team spent about four hours dedicated to finding our out-of-control shaft issue, with an outlier we couldn’t put our finger on. By 11 p.m., we found a very large issue, so we addressed it going into raceday with things unknown. We were able to put down a solid .78 run with lane choice for the second round. We have a better performing racecar than we we’ve had all year even though we didn’t make it to the finals. There was a huge piece of the puzzle that was missing and we found it here in Seattle. It’s very difficult to do something like that on the Western Swing, but we did, so we have more confidence than ever going into finalizing our spot in the top-10 and keeping the points going. I did not do my best job in the semifinal. We put on a different blower and the car ended up being better than we thought it was, so we were overpowered. We didn’t finish the best way we wanted to, but everyone on the team has a great mindset. We had a great Western Swing and we only missed running in three rounds. Our parts attrition has been fantastic and attitudes are great. I personally learned a lot of dynamics of doing a great job on the tree. I didn’t get to fully use some of the apparatuses I have in the toolbox to practice on the road, so I’ll be spending these next two weeks dialing myself back in. We have a racecar that’s performing better than ever now and will be more consistent. It makes the drive home for the team even better when you’ve had a successful Swing like this.

Contact: Ashley Wilson, (303) 594-8147, Ashley.Wilson@TrueSpeedCommunication.com