![\"Drag](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/DI_flat_red-e1711481551475.png\")
<\/p>\nGary Pritchett\u2019s Top Fuel dragster was literally on fire when he crossed the finish line last Saturday night at Darana Motorsports Park. He didn\u2019t care. He thought the flames dancing off the body panels were his win light.<\/p>\n
Turns out, it was both.<\/p>\n
Pritchett, out of Elkton, Maryland, wheeled his United Garage Doors-backed Top Fuel dragster to a first-career Ironman trophy at the IHRA Outlaw Nitro Series season opener, March 19-21, taking out Jasmine Salinas in a final round that was equal parts dramatic and dominant. Pritchett left first with a .063 reaction time and hammered down a 3.080-second pass at 274.00 mph while Salinas \u2013 who had been the class of the field all weekend with the low ET (3.004) and top speed (286.86 mph) \u2013 broke on the hit and limped to a 9.471.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my first one of my life,\u201d Pritchett said during his top-end interview, fire retardant still coating the car like confetti. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people watching this right now that made this happen. A lot of years of doing this as a crew guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
That backstory matters. Pritchett didn\u2019t parachute into a Top Fuel seat. He earned it the old-fashioned way \u2013 years of wrenching on other people\u2019s cars, learning the craft from the ground up before ever strapping in. When he talks about every crew guy \u201cfrom top to bottom\u201d being the reason a win light comes on, he\u2019s not performing gratitude. He\u2019s lived it.<\/p>\n
Pritchett qualified second in the eight-car Top Fuel field and was consistent from the jump. He opened eliminations with a .071 light and a 3.069 at 283.61 to dispatch C. Loftin, then ran a 3.134 at 272.56 in the semifinals to take out L. Callaway, who went .105 on the tree and couldn\u2019t recover despite a respectable 3.176.<\/p>\n
The final was supposed to be the marquee matchup \u2013 Pritchett vs. Salinas, the No. 2 qualifier against the weekend\u2019s quickest and fastest car. But drag racing doesn\u2019t care about scripts. Salinas\u2019s machine gave up the ghost almost immediately, and Pritchett powered through his own mechanical drama to seal it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw something going on by the walls,\u201d Pritchett recalled. \u201cI thought it was my win light, and apparently we were on fire. We got fire retardant all over the car \u2013 it looks kind of like champagne. I wish it was that.\u201d<\/p>\n
It might as well have been. In a sport defined by sudden death every round, Pritchett\u2019s path to his first Ironman was clean and decisive: three round wins, three solid reaction times, and a car that held together just long enough to matter.<\/p>\n
Pritchett made sure to thank the people behind the curtain \u2013 Doug Sr. and Shelagh Foley, United Garage Doors, Jim and Joe Clark, Coble Enterprises, Redline Oil, and Doug Foley Jr. among them. He gave a shoutout to his wife, Jessica. And he acknowledged a bet with his crew that he chose to keep private, grinning through it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just the guy in it that gets to hit the gas,\u201d Pritchett said. \u201cIt takes every crew guy from top to bottom to make a win light come on.\u201d<\/p>\n
They made three of them Saturday night. And the first one that really counted came wrapped in fire retardant and 20-plus years of paying dues.<\/p>\n
The IHRA Outlaw Nitro Series continues its 2026 season April 9-11 at Virginia Motorsports Park. For Pritchett and his team, the mission is simple: prove the first one wasn\u2019t a fluke \u2013 and that the crew-guy-turned-driver belongs in the seat.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on March 27, 2026. <\/p>\n
The post Gary Pritchett Scores First Career Top Fuel Win in Dramatic IHRA Season Opener<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gary Pritchett\u2019s Top Fuel dragster was literally on fire when he crossed the finish line last Saturday night at Darana Motorsports Park. He didn\u2019t care. He thought the flames dancing off the body panels were his win light. Turns out, it was both. Pritchett, out of Elkton, Maryland, wheeled his United Garage Doors-backed Top Fuel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}