LEAH PRUETT Returns to Top Fuel After Family Break, Takes Back TSR Wheel 2026

September 9, 2025

• LEAH PRUETT is reclaiming her rightful spot behind the wheel of the TSR Dodge//SRT Direct Connection Top Fuel dragster in 2026 after a two-year hiatus to start a family with husband Tony Stewart. The 12-time NHRA event winner stepped aside in 2024 for motherhood but never truly left the team – she’s been working on marketing initiatives and technical projects while Tony filled her seat. Her return feels inevitable given her track record and the fact that this was always her ride.
• While Tony Stewart played the supportive husband role admirably – earning 2024 Rookie of the Year honors and currently leading the 2025 championship standings – even he acknowledges this was always LEAH’s car. The arrangement worked beautifully: she got to focus on welcoming son Dominic in November 2024 while staying deeply involved in team operations, and Tony got to prove he could hang in Top Fuel. But as PRUETT noted after testing in Richmond, her “eagerness and passion” for racing never dimmed.
• PRUETT’s resume speaks for itself – 12 Top Fuel wins, a third-place championship finish in 2023 (her career best), and a journey that started at age 8 in NHRA’s Junior Drag Racing League. She’ll reunite with crew chiefs Neal Strausbaugh and Mike Domagala, the duo who helped her score TSR’s first Top Fuel win in Denver 2022 and compile an impressive 32-19 win-loss record in 2023. The timing couldn’t be better, with TSR’s two-car operation firing on all cylinders alongside four-time Funny Car champion Matt Hagan.

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