Pruett says that as much fun as her husband's 410 Sprint Car is to drive, playing in the dirt will have to wait.
NHRA/National Dragster- NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series veteran Leah Pruett scored her first win of the season and her first for first-year Tony Stewart Racing on Sunday at Bandimere Speedway.
- The win snapped an 11-event winless streak with her new team.
- Pruett is not interested in an crossover racing experience in husband Tony Stewart’s Superstar Racing Experience. Not yet, anyway.
Leah Pruett finally got the monkey off her back when she broke through for her first event win for Tony Stewart Racing at the 42nd annual Dodge Power Brokers NHRA Mile-High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway near Denver on Sunday.
Husband and team owner Stewart, fresh from his own win in his Superstar Racing Experience short-track series one night earlier, was on hand for the celebration that was 11 events in the making. Pruett’s win in her Dodge Power Brokers dragster left her sixth in the NHRA Top Fuel Dragster class standings and finally with a little breathing room above the cutline for the NHRA Countdown to the Championship playoffs.
The top 10 driver in each pro category will race for the season championship over the final six events of the season, beginning with the Sept. 15-18 event at Reading, Pa.
Now that Pruett is back in the win column in NHRA, how about giving a little support to Tony’s series and racing in the SRX? Not going to happen, Pruett told Autoweek when we sat down with her at the June NHRA event at Norwalk, Ohio.
That’s not to say Pruett and Stewart haven’t kicked the tires on the possibility of a little cross-promotion in the future.
“I did get to go to Putnamville (Ind.) earlier this year, and I ran his 410 Sprint Car,” Pruett said. “That takes a lot of forearms, especially if you’re not running 100 percent.”
To be fair, Tony, who run just about everything in is racing life full throttle, did leave his wife hanging a bit when he tossed her the proverbial key to the Sprint Car.
“Tony is very, very generous with his opportunities, but not in his teaching aspect,” Pruett said. “But he knows that, and we’ve talked about it. He basically says, ‘Here’s the ignition, here’s where to put it gear, and go.’ There wasn’t anything about learning the apexes, learning the drifting—and it’s not really a drifting game, its more of a drive-out-of-it game. Still, I had a ton of fun.”
So, how about giving a little dirt-track racing a try?
“There’s a lot of people who thought we would crossover more with our sports, but I don’t feel that’s the recipe for true success. I would say there’s a pretty big misconception that I think people have that all race car drivers can drive all race cars,” Pruett said. “That’s not particularly true.
“The disciplines that are important in drag racing are your consistency of doing the same things right every single time, down to that tenth of a second. And then there’s your ability to make very crucial decisions in very small amount of time because there’s not another lap to come around. There’s not another turn where you say, ‘I’ll get that guy next time on that other lap.’
“Every single decision you make in this car is important to that exact moment, from leaving the line to how quick you react to smoking the tires. How much do I know about my car’s tuneup? Will it stay alive to the end of that run or not?”
Pruett, 34, has been in a few cars over the years that haven’t made it down the track. Sometimes, it isn’t pretty.
“For us, it’s being able to make all of the right decisions and all of the right movements in a very competitive manner and a very safe manner because if one of those things go wrong you can have catastrophic results. Not to say that can’t happen in the other disciplines—I have the utmost respect for them—but this is a highest intensity level when it comes to motorsports.”
Keyword: When It Comes to Tony Stewart's SRX, Dirt Tracks, Leah Pruett Plans to Stay in Her Own Lane