{"id":69533,"date":"2023-03-27T16:27:49","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T20:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=69533"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:19:52","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:19:52","slug":"pruett-takes-direct-connection-top-fuel-dragster-to-semi-finals-at-nhra-arizona-nationals-now-moves-to-home-track-in-pomona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/racing\/2023\/03\/pruett-takes-direct-connection-top-fuel-dragster-to-semi-finals-at-nhra-arizona-nationals-now-moves-to-home-track-in-pomona.html","title":{"rendered":"Pruett Takes Direct Connection Top Fuel Dragster to Semi Finals At NHRA Arizona Nationals, Now Moves to Home Track in Pomona"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Coming off an outstanding\nperformance at the season-opening NHRA Gatornationals two weeks ago, the Tony\nStewart Racing (TSR) Direct Connection crews of drivers Leah Pruett and Matt\nHagan battled a tricky track this weekend in the Arizona Nationals at Wild\nHorse Pass Motorsports Park. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Arizona Nationals welcomed\na sellout crowd and sunny skies in the final NHRA national event at the popular\nracing facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On track, Pruett, who won her\nfirst NHRA Top Fuel national event back in 2016 at the Arizona dragstrip,\nrecorded her second consecutive semi-final finish Sunday after impressive\n3.72-second runs in defeating Buddy Hull (round one) and reigning Top Fuel\nWorld Champion Brittany Force (round two) in the TSR Direct Connection Top Fuel\ndragster. Leah lost to former World Champion Shawn Langdon in the semi-finals\nwith a 3.761 to Langdon\u2019s 3.719.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The back-to-back semi-final\nfinishes for Pruett moved her into the top-three in the current NHRA Camping\nWorld Top Fuel point standings, heading to the third event this weekend at\nPomona, CA, in the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWhen\nyou look at the results sheet from the weekend, we did not come home with the\nWally win, but there are many wins that we experienced throughout the whole\nweekend,\u201d said Pruett. We were the lowest qualifier in the third session of\nqualifying, which allowed us to gather points. It shows our momentum is\ncontinuing. It is a product of having both magnitude and direction. All last\nyear, we were finding our direction and now we are moving that forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnother\nsemifinal finish gives us four round wins in two races. You feel like you are\nracing more than you are qualifying and that\u2019s what we love to do. We\u2019re\ntesting on Monday and that circles me back to that consistency. We\u2019re happy\nwith the weekend. It\u2019s unfortunate we couldn\u2019t get that last win at the last\npass for Arizona. For right now, we are gaining a ton of ground and look\nforward to Pomona.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hagan, coming off his\nseason-opening Funny Car victory two weeks ago at the Gatornationals, qualified\nfourth in the TSR Direct Connection Dodge Charger\nSRT\u00ae<\/sup> Hellcat Funny Car and won the first round against fellow Dodge\nCharger racer Cruz Pedregon with a 4.178 run. However, Hagan\u2019s car lost\ntraction in round two against Chad Green at only 4.962. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite\nthe quarter-final loss, Hagan currently ranks second in the NHRA Camping World\nFunny Car points, only four points out of the lead, as the Dickie Venables-led\nTSR crew heads this week to the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cPretty\ntricky weekend out there,\u201d said Hagan. \u201cTrack conditions were throwing\neverybody for a loop. We really struggled to try to get our car tuned in and\nget down this racetrack. And get the car\u2019s power pulled back enough to do it,\nbut it struck the tires both rounds today. So, we\u2019ve got some learning to do\nwith a hot, greasy racetrack. And that\u2019s challenging for everyone, you know.\nBut like I said it\u2019s one of those things where we just came off a win at\nGainesville, and we went a couple of rounds today. We\u2019ll keep the momentum\nmoving forward and we\u2019ll go to Pomona next weekend and get down the racetrack.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to Pruett and Hagan\u2019s results at the Arizona National, Dodge SRT Funny Cars drivers\nPedregon and Alex Laughlin lost in the first round of\neliminations Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dodge SRT Mopar\u00ae<\/sub> Direct Connection racers will now compete in this weekend (March\n31-April 2) at the In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip, Pruett\u2019s home\ntrack, in the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals. The event will be televised on\nFox Sports 1 with qualifying 1 on Saturday, April 1, at 7 p.m. EDT\/4 p.m. PDT\nfollowing by qualifying 2 on Sunday, April 2, at 12:30 p.m. EDT\/9:30 a.m. PDT\nand final eliminations on Sunday, April 2, at 7 p.m. EDT\/4 p.m. PDT.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coming off an outstanding performance at the season-opening NHRA Gatornationals two weeks ago, the Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) Direct Connection crews of drivers Leah Pruett and Matt Hagan battled a tricky track this weekend in the Arizona Nationals at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park. The Arizona Nationals welcomed a sellout crowd and sunny skies in the final NHRA national event at the popular racing facility. On track, Pruett, who won her first NHRA Top Fuel national event back in 2016 at the Arizona dragstrip, recorded her second consecutive semi-final finish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":69535,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[575],"tags":[528,615,2992],"class_list":["post-69533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing","tag-drag-racing","tag-nhra","tag-tony-stewart-racing"],"acf":[],"custom_fields":{"post_thumbnail_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/ArizonaNats_Feature.jpg","social_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/ArizonaNats_Social.jpg","icon_selection":"article","external_link":"","featured_article":[],"upload_background_image":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69533"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69533"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69544,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69533\/revisions\/69544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}