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<\/p>\nTony Stewart and the R+L Carriers Top Fuel dragster team rallied to the first nitro victory for Elite Motorsports Sunday at the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals at In-N-Out Pomona Dragstrip. It was Stewart\u2019s third career Top Fuel victoyr and his first at Pomona Dragstrip.<\/p>\n
After multiple delays due to weather and on-track incidents, Stewart faced-off with Top Fuel rising star Justin Ashley in the finals under the lights at the historic facility. Ashley, known for his stout reaction times, left the starting line first but the R+L Carriers machine chased him down by the 60-foot marker and never trailed. Stewart reached the finish line in 3.683-seconds at 332.51 mph to defeat Ashley\u2019s 3.714 at 328.54.<\/p>\n
\u201cI literally told Richard Freeman (Elite Motorsports team owner) and Royce Freeman (Richard\u2019s brother) on Friday, \u2018I know I\u2019m relatively new to drag racing, but I\u2019ve been racing for 47 years, I\u2019ve been a part of a lot of different programs and worked with a lot of different people. But I promise you, all the ingredients are here to win. I don\u2019t know when it\u2019s going to click and when it\u2019s all going to come together, but all the stuff that you need to be successful is right here.\u2019 I had no idea just 48 hours later that it was going to come together,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cWe had a great day and I felt great on the racetrack. I felt great on the lights. They made big adjustments for the final to run a 3.68. [Crew chief] Mike Green\u2019s track record speaks for itself, and so does Joe Barlam. For me to race with those guys and and to race with a different program, it\u2019s definitely a unique and different dynamic than what I\u2019m used to. But it\u2019s awesome to race with Mike Green and Joe and Dustin Davis.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is three Top Fuel wins now for me, and the one person I\u2019ve never mentioned in the media and in the interviews is my wife Leah [Pruett]. And if it wasn\u2019t for her and everything that she and Matt [Hagan] (Funny Car driver) taught me. Leah has probably been 95% of it, people don\u2019t realize how integral of a part she\u2019s been in my career in drag racing. I\u2019ve had a 1000 questions and every time there\u2019s an answer, it leads to three more questions. Everything that I\u2019ve done in the sport has been because of her. And to be a part of NHRA\u2019s 75th Anniversary, to win with Matt Hagan in the 1000th Funny Car race is huge. This is Leah\u2019s home track. All of this just feels extra special to me,\u201d continued Stewart who won alongside his Tony Stewart Racing Funny Car driven by Matt Hagan. \u201cLeah\u2019s story of telling me that when she was a kid, she\u2019d sneak out of school just to come to the drag races on Friday here at Pomona. When she won here, just to be here for an event and a track that\u2019s so special means everything. Now I\u2019m here sitting holding a \u2018Wally\u2019 trophy, in NHRA\u2019s 75th Anniversary, just super special. It\u2019s awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
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En route to the finals, Stewart and the R+L team took down Will Smith, 2026 Gatornationals winner Josh Hart and former world champion Shawn Langdon.<\/p>\n
Elite Motorsports continues the 2026 Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series season with the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway just outside of Charlotte April 24-26.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on April 13, 2026. ![\"Drag](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/DI_flat_red-e1711481551475.png\")
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The post Tony Stewart, R+L Carriers Team Get Elite Motorsports\u2019 First Top Fuel Win at NHRA Winternationals<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tony Stewart and the R+L Carriers Top Fuel dragster team rallied to the first nitro victory for Elite Motorsports Sunday at the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals at In-N-Out Pomona Dragstrip. It was Stewart\u2019s third career Top Fuel victoyr and his first at Pomona Dragstrip. After multiple delays due to weather and on-track incidents, Stewart faced-off […]<\/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-103372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103372","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=103372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}