NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Leah Pruett’s final-round Top Fuel loss at the FMP NHRA Arizona Nationals presented by NGK Spark Plugs spoiled what would have been a storybook weekend for the driver of the Tony Stewart Racing dragster.

Pruett, who resides part-time with husband Tony Stewart in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., scored her first Top Fuel win at this event in 2016 and was hoping for some more Phoenix magic with her first win since a two-year hiatus to start a family, but she got stopped by Shawn Langdon one win light shy of that dream. A final-round victory also would have been the milestone 200th Professional-class win by a female racer in NHRA competition.

“Phoenix is my adoptive home race for sure,” she said before the event. “Even before I moved to Arizona. I have always felt the love of the Phoenix fans, like they’ve taken me in as one of their own. Ten years ago, I was an underdog, fairly new on the Pro scene, and found myself gravitating and connecting with so many West Coast nitro-loving people. They really made me feel at home. They made winning my first Top Fuel race even better. There weren’t many similarities between my back-to-back wins in Phoenix."

Pruett scored her first Professional win in 2016 in Phoenix in a Bob Vandergriff Racing dragster over Brittany Force in what was the first all-female Top Fuel final in 34 years, since Shirley Muldowney defeated Lucille Lee at the 1982 NHRA Springnationals. The following year, in her new ride with Don Schumacher Racing, she beat Force again in the final round in Phoenix.

“They were with completely separate teams, cars, and crew chiefs, which proves to me that Phoenix loves new energy, and that’s exactly what I have this year,” she said.

Pruett, who also raced Jr. Dragsters at the Firebird track in her early days, was competing in just her second Top Fuel race after nearly winning the 2023 world championship. Between her decision to step aside to start a family, Pruett had been the driving force in lobbying NHRA for an addendum to the Driver Replacement Policy that recognized pregnancy and new motherhood.

Her return to competition at the season-opening Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals showed that the 18-time national event winner — 12 of those wins have come in Top Fuel — had not lost a step, and the flawless return to full-time sponsored driver and fan favorite was a testament to achieving the goals she set with her driver-replacement initiative, let alone her personal achievement goals.

Pruett was running the colors of the Rayce Rudeen Foundation that Stewart had carried to his first career Top Fuel win last spring in Las Vegas, and with the Rudeen family in attendance, all of the stars seemed aligned for a triumphant return to the winner’s circle.

After lining up alongside Stewart for the first time ever in the first qualifying session — she won a 4.14 to 4.19 coasting battle after both lost traction — Pruett’s Neal Strausbaugh-tuned dragster qualified second at 3.788.

"Our goal is always to start the weekend off qualifying well, so being No. 2, and in our opinion, we even missed it a little bit,” she assessed. “We had the expectations that we could have had something that could have been No. 1. That attitude and confidence in our program really showed throughout the entire weekend of having a good handle on our horsepower level.”

In eliminations, Pruett scored wins over Cameron Ferre, Josh Hart, and reigning world champion Doug Kalitta, the latter being her first race with Kalitta since he defeated her in the winner-take-all championship battle at the 2023 NHRA Finals.

In the final, both drivers had nearly identical reaction times, but Langdon’s 3.877 beat Pruett’s 3.930. Despite the loss, Pruett moved to fourth in the current NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Top Fuel points standings.

"We're competitive, and we're happy with our consistent runs and being quick given the conditions," she said. "But that doesn't mean that we're not allowed to take a moment and be a little bit bummed and upset about a final round that we all wanted really bad. Some changes were made in the car for the first time this weekend, and it didn't react in the direction that we thought it was going to. The car speed just fell off throughout the entire run; all the metrics showed it. Neal Strausbaugh was being really hard on himself for a moment, but our crew chiefs got us there. He and Mike Domagala, and the guys doing their job, expectations were met this weekend.

“We're competitive, and we're happy with our consistent runs and being quick given the hot conditions. But that doesn't mean that we're not allowed to take a moment and be a little bit bummed and upset about a final round that we all wanted really badly. It’s wild. Our crew chiefs were darn near perfect, and that's what we build on. That is momentum. I could harp on things that I need to work on, but this weekend was a great testament to my team and my crew chiefs, who really carry the team. I feel 10 times better than I did in Gainesville, and I didn’t think that that was possible.”

Less than 12 years after Courtney Force collected the 100th female Pro win in Topeka in 2014, the milestone 200th is up for grabs, continuing at the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals, where Pruett, Top Fuel rookie Maddi Gordon (a semifinalist at both events so far this season), six-time Pro Stock world champ Erica Enders, or Gatornationals Funny Car runner-up Alexis DeJoria are the favorites to collect that victory, either in Pomona or later this season.