It’s difficult to understand the inner battle Leah Pruett waged with her emotions toward the end of the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing season.
On one hand, the 35-year-old had made a plan to step out of the driver’s seat in 2024 to focus on starting a family with team owner and husband Tony Stewart. The biological clock was ticking, and Pruett’s mindset was, “There’s never the perfect, right time to start a family. You just do it and you make it happen.”
But on the other hand, she was in the midst of a career-best season on the drag strip and poised to fight for her first Top Fuel championship at the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals at Pomona, Calif.
The Tony Stewart Racing powerhouse had fought hard for two Wallys and four runner-up appearances en route to the Nov. 12 season finale.
“It was a coin flip either way,” said Pruett, who officially made her decision before the six-race Countdown to the Championship began.
“You know, it was difficult for me to get out of the seat when we have so much momentum and everything that we worked on during the year proved to work. Knowing what our capabilities are and not being in that seat, that’s the difficult part.”
Stewart, who will be replacing Pruett in the cockpit of the Top Fuel dragster in 2024, also expected Pruett to re-think her decision after an epic final race in Pomona that resulted in Pruett finishing third in the championship.
To lend some perspective, just two years ago, Pruett finished the season 11th in the standings with only one win and one runner-up finish.
“When we drove to the banquet on Monday after the race, I figured it was about a 70 percent chance that she was gonna say, ‘Hey, I want to push this back a year,’” Stewart said. “And if she did, that was totally fine. I wanted it to be on her time.”
But the words never emerged from Pruett, who came to terms with two major life decisions while in Pomona.
One, she was going to continue with her plan to start a family with Stewart. And two, she was going to make a return to the drag strip one day and take care of the unfinished business she was leaving behind.
“When I went through the final against Doug (Kalitta) and my win light didn’t come on, I’m literally still going 300 mph and the words out of my mouth were, ‘Wow, I really gotta come back,’” Pruett recalled.
So, this isn’t the end of her 10-year career in Top Fuel, or the last time that fans will see her behind the wheel. But it is still a life-changing moment in Pruett’s trajectory.
“I can’t even wrap my head around how tough of a decision it was for her to pull herself out of the race car after her best season ever, to start a family and then feel comfortable putting her husband in her race car,” Stewart said. “She’s amazing.”
One of the foremost considerations in Pruett’s decision was her health, as the California native has been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease — an autoimmune disorder that affects hormone production.
“Knowing that, that’s going to give some challenges in our plan to start a family, we don’t know how long that’s going to take,” said Pruett, who is not yet pregnant.
Allowing herself extra time for the process of starting a family, as well as ensuring she wouldn’t need to abandon driving duties mid-season should she get pregnant, were incredibly important to Pruett as she contemplated her future.
But with the announcement now behind her, Pruett feels settled in her choice.
“I’m going to miss being in the seat, there’s no doubt, but when you truly love somebody and we are one-team, all-team in every way, it’s going to make my heart so happy (to see Stewart compete),” Pruett said. “I look forward to growing as an individual outside the race car.”