Leah Pruett and the Dodge Top Fuel team won their first Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge of the season Saturday while qualifying for the NHRA U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.<\/p>\n
Pruett, who has one previous win in the specialty race from 2023, picked up the victory along with bonus qualifying points and a cash prize, when she defeated points leader and Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge season champion Doug Kalitta in the finals. Pruett\u2019s 3.873-second pass at 319.98 mph was enough to take down Kalitta\u2019s 4.502 at 187.16 after he smoked the tires down track.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at the importance of the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge \u2013 whether it\u2019s the first race of the season or all the way up to now \u2013 I think you feel like they weigh more, or the points weigh more right now than they do earlier on, even though they don\u2019t,\u201d Pruett said. \u201cI just love the #2Fast2Tasty Challenge. It makes you feel race-ready. But to get any sort of win here at \u2018The Big Go,\u2019 in front of this crowd, with the changing variables, the history, the pageantry \u2013 everything about it is fulfilling. I\u2019m so blessed to be in a race car with a team that never, ever gives up. It shows that yes, points-wise, we\u2019re miles away from those Kalitta cars in the top but races like the one we just had, in these conditions at the biggest race of the entire year, that proves they gave it everything they got, we gave it everything we got, and what we had was better.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could have been better on the starting line. I barely even hit the light, and I was like, \u2018That sucked. I am not happy at all,\u2019\u201d Pruett explained. \u201cI was just waiting for Doug to scream on by at 340mph. And he didn\u2019t. Our Dodge car saved that round. It all comes back to unity and team.\u00a0This win is personal; this is sentimental to us. Ryan McGilvry, our car chief hadn\u2019t won a #2Fast2Tasty Challenge with us. Our win in 2023 Ryan was gone for his kid\u2019s graduation. Plus, Sledge on our team, it\u2019s his birthday today. It\u2019s just a lot of emotions, a lot of feels. And I\u2019m embracing it because all this is emotional warfare in preparation for the biggest, baddest \u2018Big Go\u2019 that there could ever be. That\u2019s where I\u2019m at, and that\u2019s how I feel.\u201d<\/p>\n
En route to the final, Pruett and the Dodge team redeemed themselves against Brainerd Nationals semi-final opponent Maddi Gordon. Pruett and Gordon\u2019s machines both started to haze the tires but, Pruett was able to pilot her dragster to a 4.083-second pass at 263.20 mph to defeat Gordon\u2019s 4.242 at 210.97.<\/p>\n
Pruett is currently qualified third for the NHRA U.S. Nationals while teammate Matt Hagan is eighth with just two qualifying sessions and the PlayNHRA Funny Car Callout left on Sunday at noon and 2:45 p.m. before eliminations begin on Monday at 10 a.m.<\/p>\n
Television coverage of the event at Indianapolis Raceway Park\u00a0will start with two qualifying shows Sunday at 3:00 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. ET. A special PlayNHRA Funny Car All Star Callout show will air Sunday at 7:00 p.m. ET. Eliminations will begin to air Monday at noon on FS1 before switching to FOX at 2 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n
The post Leah Pruett Wins Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge at NHRA U.S. Nationals<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leah Pruett and the Dodge Top Fuel team won their first Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge of the season Saturday while qualifying for the NHRA U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. Pruett, who has one previous win in the specialty race from 2023, picked up the victory along with bonus qualifying points and […]<\/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-104738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104738","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=104738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}