Tony Stewart Racing: Pomona Event Recap for the 62nd NHRA Winternationals

Leah Pruett & Matt Hagan Dodge Power Brokers Top Fuel & Funny Car Drivers 62nd NHRA Winternationals Event Recap Feb. 18-20 | Pomona, California

Event Recap

Leah Pruett, driver of the Dodge Power Brokers Top Fuel Dragster: ●  Earned No. 16 provisional qualifying position on Friday (8.425 ET at 77.00 mph) ●  Secured No. 7 qualifying position on Saturday (3.726 ET at 328.54 mph) ●  Ran a 3.748 ET at 328.86 mph in Round 1 of eliminations on Sunday, lost to Antron Brown (3.724 ET at 327.66 mph)   Matt Hagan, driver of the Dodge Power Brokers Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car: ●  Earned No. 2 provisional qualifying position on Friday (3.886 ET at 329.34 mph) ●  Secured No. 3 qualifying position on Saturday (3.886 ET at 313.07 mph) ●  Advanced to Semifinals on Sunday:     ●  Round 1: 4.071 ET at 260.31 mph, defeated Chad Green (4.124 ET at 282.13 mph)     ●  Round 2: 3.885 ET at 328.94 mph, defeated Bob Tasca III (3.984 ET at 325.77 mph)     ●  Semifinal: 4.026 ET at 317.64 mph, lost to Robert Hight (3.861 ET at 332.10 mph)

Notes of Interest

●  The NHRA Winternationals served as Tony Stewart Racing’s debut in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series. ●  Pruett and Hagan each qualified in the top half of the eliminations ladder of Top Fuel and Funny Car, respectively, which awarded each lane choice for Round 1 of eliminations on Sunday. ●  For defending Winternationals Top Fuel winner Pruett, her Round 1 run on Sunday was her 10th start in the event and her 15th overall at Pomona. ●  Hagan’s semifinal appearance in the Winternationals was his 12th overall at Pomona and it came in his 26th start at the track.

Leah Pruett, Driver of the Dodge Power Brokers Top Fuel Dragster

“If you would’ve told me three months ago that we would qualify the Dodge Power Brokers dragster No. 7 for the Winternationals, make it down the track nearly every time, have a healthy running engine combination with a reactive car, and a team that gels together very well, I would take that 10 out of 10 times. We’re still sorting our power range and developing our baseline and I’m learning to race under different circumstances. I had a less than impressive start – very atypical of the consistent quick times I had in qualifying. I will be working on managing my happy throttle foot while we fine tune our high HEMI horsepower performance.”

Matt Hagan, Driver of the Dodge Power Brokers Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car

“I’m really proud of Tony (Stewart) and Leah (Pruett) for putting this all together in such a quick fashion. I’m also super proud of my guys to be able to get a rhythm going today, since we’re all in a new position. We only had an hour to turn the car around, so we still had to check headers, and weigh and scale in that time. Today is obviously not the result we wanted – getting eliminated in the semifinals. I know what we’re capable of and I know what we can do to get that fixed. We’ll go on to Phoenix and be just as strong there. I’m really proud of my lights. I was murdering the tree all weekend. That gives me confidence as a driver, but it also gets in other drivers’ heads. We want to win every race we can, but I was pretty happy with this Dodge Power Brokers Charger for the first outing. You learn from your mistakes and move forward. Drag racing has the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. You lose more than you win, but when you win, it’s great. I’m looking forward to that first win with this team.”

Next Up

The next event on the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series schedule is the NHRA Arizona Nationals Feb. 25-27 at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Chandler, Arizona.