Leah Pruett & Matt Hagan
Dodge Power Brokers Top Fuel & Funny Car Drivers
Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals
June 24-26 | Norwalk, Ohio
Event Recap
Leah Pruett, driver of the Dodge Power Brokers Top Fuel Dragster:
● Earned No. 7 provisional qualifying position in Q1 on Friday (3.867 ET at 321.27 mph).
● Earned No. 14 qualifying position in Q2 on Friday (3.862 ET at 313.58 mph).
● Maintained No. 14 qualifying position after Q3 on Saturday, which was based off Friday’s Q2 run. In Q3, Pruett ran a 3.867 ET at 319.37 mph.
● Secured No. 15 qualifying position based off Q2 run on Friday. In Q4 on Saturday, Pruett ran a 3.872 ET at 316.38 mph.
● Advanced to Semifinal on Sunday:
● Round 1: 3.776 ET at 327.98 mph, beat Justin Ashley (3.852 ET at 317.49 mph).
● Round 2: 3.798 ET at 325.61 mph, beat Steve Torrence (3.802 ET at 327.51 mph).● Semifinal: 6.062 ET at 135.36 mph, lost to Mike Salinas (3.822 ET at 296.89 mph).
● Currently 10th in the Top Fuel championship standings, 404 points behind points leader Salinas.
Matt Hagan, driver of the Dodge Power Brokers Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car:
● Earned No. 8 provisional qualifying position in Q1 on Friday (4.078 ET at 310.34 mph).
● Earned No. 5 qualifying position in Q2 on Friday (3.917 ET at 329.91 mph).
● Maintained No. 5 qualifying position after Q3 on Saturday, which was based off Friday’s Q2 run. In Q3, Hagan ran 6.650 ET at 101.75 mph.
● Secured No. 5 qualifying position based off Q2 run on Friday. In Q4 on Saturday, Hagan ran a 4.049 ET at 311.99 mph.
● Advanced to Round 2 on Sunday:
● Round 1: 3.948 ET at 322.65 mph, defeated Tim Wilkerson (8.509 ET at 104.92 mph).
● Round 2: 4.876 ET at 173.45 mph, lost to Bob Tasca III (3.941 ET at 327.27 mph).● Currently second in the Funny Car championship standings, 21 points behind points leader Robert Hight.
Notes of Interest
● Pruett advanced to the semifinal for the first time this season, elevating her to 10th in the Top Fuel championship standings.
● With Hagan earning the No. 5 qualifying spot, his average qualifying position after 10 events this season is 3.9.
Leah Pruett, Driver of the Dodge Power Brokers Top Fuel Dragster
“Advancing to the semifinal was a long time coming and it didn’t come easy. Even though we were consistent in qualifying with our 0.86s, we kept trying to go faster and the car was going slower. This entire year, the car has been very reactive to what we ask it to do. This whole weekend, it was not cooperating. We were trying to throw more at it and it kept slowing down. It hung on there through the first two rounds. I’m very proud of all of my guys bolting this Dodge HEMI together. They are quality men with quality parts and great decision-making skills. I’m proud of myself for being up on the wheel. My takeaways are yes, we get excited about some round wins, but we didn’t get overzealous. We’re highlighting how we got to this point and we will also be highlighting why we smoked the tires in the semifinal. We didn’t think we were too far over center, but we got a better handle on going rounds. Being in the top-10 right now, we’re good at clinching on to what we know and moving forward with momentum. We’ll do the same thing with the points. This was very needed on all parts – for morale, attitudes and performance of the car. It was an awesome weekend to do it in our Dodge Power Brokers dragster as we brokered it to the semifinal.”
Matt Hagan, Driver of the Dodge Power Brokers Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car
“Having qualified fifth this weekend, we had a good racecar. We’re just trying to gather more data in the heat. Dickie Venables (crew chief) always has a great handle on what he’s doing and the decisions to make next. I know he’s always got a great game plan. Once we get out to Denver, we’ll be doing the Dodge Drive Event on Wednesday and Thursday, so we’ll have a long and productive weekend to start the Western Swing. We’ll be changing up our entire combination and use the one we had last year when we won at Bandimere. We’ll take what we learned here and tuck it away until we get to another hot racetrack with similar conditions and we can apply the knowledge we learned this weekend in the Dodge Power Brokers Funny Car. All in all, it’s tough when you’ve been on such a roll to go out in the second round a couple of times in a row, but that’s drag racing. We’ll keep digging and growing and building our data to move forward.”
Next Up
The next event on the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series schedule is the Dodge Power Brokers NHRA Mile-High Nationals July 15-17 at Bandimere Speedway in Morrison, Colorado. The Dodge Power Brokers NHRA Mile-High Nationals will start the NHRA’s Western Swing and serve as the midpoint of the 2022 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series season. It will also be a marquee weekend for Tony Stewart Racing and team partner Dodge, with a Dodge Drive Event taking place July 13-14.
