MESA, Ariz. — Eyebrows arched last September when NHRA Pro Stock megateam owner Richard Freeman bought Josh Hart’s Top Fuel equipment and announced a deal to put Tony Stewart in the dragster because Stewart’s wife, Leah Pruett, was reclaiming the family ride following maternity leave.
Hart moved to John Force Racing inherited the dragster in which retiring Brittany Force set records coast to coast.
If the musical-dragsters scenario was easy enough to follow, the logistics of it for Stewart might have been more puzzling. How would this new gig with Elite Motorsports work out?
NASCAR star Denny Hamlin is co-owner of 23XI Racing with Michael Jordan but drives for Joe Gibbs Racing. Dale Earnhardt Sr., Junior Johnson, and Richard Petty tried it before. So the concept works.
But how would it work for Stewart? How’s it working in 2026?
Pretty terrific.
In Stewart’s driving life, he scored the Winternationals Top Fuel victory in just his third start for Elite.
And what about his TSR Nitro team? TSR’s Matt Hagan won the Funny Car final, the class’ 1,000th, at the same race.
And at that moment, the season still had 16 more races remaining.
“This is three Top Fuel wins for me now and the first for Richard Freeman and Elite Motorsports,” Stewart said. “The one person I’ve never mentioned in the media after the win is my wife, Leah. And if it wasn’t for her and everything that she’s taught me – that’s probably been 95-percent of it – I wouldn’t be here. But she is such a huge part. People don’t realize how integral of a part she’s been in my career in drag racing.
“Everything that I’ve done in this sport has been because of her. I wouldn’t even be an owner in the sport and be involved in it. The impact she’s had on my career here, and to be a part of it in NHRA, 75th Anniversary, is huge. Now I’m here sitting holding a ‘Wally’ trophy, in the 75th Anniversary, is just super-special.”
“We worked really hard at passing the baton off from Tony to me,” Pruett said.
It’s no real surprise, according to Hagan.
“Leah and Tony, they juggle and race the cars, but they also do a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. And I know Leah the last couple years has been dealing with a lot of front office stuff, a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff, a lot of personnel stuff. So they’ve had to make changes. They brought in Phil Shuler. She was a big reason for that happening. They had a relationship there. Phil has been a great add to this deal. Leah has been really behind the scenes, the person getting that stuff done. And they’re doing the same thing over there with the Elite team. They’re putting a group of people together that just really work well, and it’s cool,” Hagan said.
And Pruett is all-in with TSR Nitro.
She said when she walked to the starting line to watch her husband in the Top Fuel final at Pomona and her Funny Car teammate rolling the dice for the distinction of winning the category’s 1,000th race, “it’s like watching a show that you don’t know how the end of it is, but you were there helping produce it, to a degree.”
And she was swept up in the nail-biting emotion of it all, unfolding in the dragstrip where she began her career as a Jr. Dragster driver.
“Coming into that final,” Pruett said, “it felt so world finals. We’re four races in, and this feels like the championship right now. So with Tony running Justin [Ashley], me hoping so bad that he would continue to find a way to dig, dig, dig, but I didn’t ever question it. And then for Matt to run behind, I did not think about, ‘Man, what’s this going to be like when we double up?’ It was living in the moment: ‘These are big finals right here.’ I think I jumped higher and I screamed louder when Matt won. That is because that is my TSR teammate. That is Matt. I’m in the trenches with him with that team all the time.”
Pruett texted Hagan as he was flying home from California to Virginia that weekend, sending him a list of legends whose company he had joined: Big Jim Dunn, Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, John Force. Her attention to detail and investment in the team was clear.
Hagan, a four-time champion, said TSR Nitro is a fresh experience for him: “What’s so exciting for me is that I’ve never had this. I’ve been very, very successful and we’ve had a lot of things kind of go our way. We work really hard and work through adversity with a lot of stuff. But right now I’m in a spot to where I show up and just everything is great.
“There’s smiles on all the guys’ faces and they’re signing multi-year contracts to stay with each other and keep this thing going. And we’re in a really good spot and it makes me excited to see what’s going to happen with it being such an early win in the season. That win along with winning championships and everything else is a result of what we’ve created here and what they’ve created here and what the environment we’re in.”
He said he never before has operated in an “atmosphere where everything is good.”
So what seemed like an unusual arrangement is starting to look like a smart one.
