NHRA: Leah Pritchett aims to bounce back from 2019 struggles at Denver

By Jul 17, 2019, 7:00 AM EDT
Photos courtesy Mopar Racing
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This hasn’t been the easiest of seasons for NHRA Top Fuel driver Leah Pritchett.

For the first time in her professional drag racing career, Pritchett is coming off a double-whammy of sorts.

First, she has never gone this deep into a season – through 13 of the scheduled 24 races – without at least one win by this point.

“We’ve runner-upped this year and made some semi-final appearances, but we’ve struggled,” Pritchett told NBC Sports. “And I’ve struggled as a driver at certain tracks with things like reaction times.”

Second, equally as painful as not having a win yet, is the Southern California native was forced to miss the first race of her pro career two weeks ago (at Epping, New Hampshire) due to lack of sponsorship.

“It was pretty difficult to miss the race,” Pritchett said.

But she didn’t lament or take a woe-is-me approach to missing that weekend in New England. Instead, she did something to help others, volunteering in New Jersey and Philadelphia for the Team Rubicon disaster relief organization, helping victims of severe flooding in those areas.

“I wanted to give as much as I could and that was time I never have to do it because we’re always racing,” Pritchett said. “It was definitely a different perspective. Missing a race was painful, but I tried to use it to as much good and of an advantage as I could.”

A big boxing fan when she’s not hurtling down a 1,000-foot drag strip at speeds approaching 330 mph in just over 3.6 seconds, Pritchett metaphorically compared herself and her plight thus far this season to boxer Floyd Mayweather. She’s ready to bounce back up off the canvas and get back in the fight at this weekend’s Dodge Mile-High NHRA Nationals at Bandimere Speedway in suburban Denver.

“Honestly, you don’t want to back Mayweather into a corner,” Pritchett said. “He’s going to find his way and put his moves on you and it’s going to hurt when he gets out. That’s honestly how I feel like.”

Pritchett has reached the final round the last two years at Denver, including winning last year’s event.

Despite this season’s setbacks, Pritchett has good cause for optimism about this weekend’s race. She’s not only been the No. 1 qualifier the last two years at Denver, she also reached the finals both times, including winning last year’s race. Plus, two of her primary sponsors, Dodge and Mopar, sponsor this event.

“For me and the team, this is the most prestigious race for us on the circuit,” Pritchett said. “We generated some momentum from the last couple of races we’ve had here.”

The seven-time Top Fuel national event winner (plus seven other runner-up finishes) enters this weekend seventh in the standings. With five races remaining in the regular season to qualify for the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoffs, the significance of this race, which kicks off the annual three-race “West Coast Swing,” is pivotal.

“In the Swing, you have to have your act together,” Pritchett said of the three consecutive weekends of racing. “It’s the longest-running door-to-door (road trip). Last year, we made two of the three finals. We also runner-upped at Seattle. As much as we’re looking forward to the Swing and being prepared for it, our focus is definitely on Denver.”

But Pritchett admits racing a mile above sea level – which robs motors of oxygen – has its challenges.

“You bring a lot of extra inventory (of parts) to this race that you won’t run at any other race in the series,” she said. “Going into the first qualifying run on Friday, everyone is starting at zero. You don’t look to the weekend or the month before and go off the baseline you’ve been running all year.

“This is undoubtedly one of the most difficult races, if not the most difficult race, from a tuner’s perspective. You’ve got to set yourself up with a good baseline, a good tuneup baseline, which is why every portion of this race is so critical.

“Additionally, from an altitude perspective, you have less air, which is less downforce, which changes the aerodynamics of the car and the way you drive it in Top Fuel, from wing angles to how it steers to how it lifts down-track.

“All of the atmospheric conditions play the most challenging part of an entire season. Being the Dodge Nationals and the Mopar flagship race, when you win and you get No. 1 qualifier and do well, it’s really a testament of something to be proud of. It’s a whole team effort. We get to put all the coals to it.”

Last season, although she finished fourth in the Top Fuel ranks, Pritchett won her first NHRA world championship by capturing the Factory Stock Showdown. This year, even with defending Top Fuel champion Steve Torrence again making mincemeat of the class with seven wins already, Pritchett has high hopes she can still overtake Torrence to win her first Top Fuel crown.

It’s just a matter of getting going again, and she couldn’t think of a better place to do so than Denver.

“Even with the Torrences, we can give them a run for their money,” she said. “A shot at a championship is still way more than conceivable.”

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In tears after the Indianapolis 500, Santino Ferrucci is proud of his third-place finish

By Jun 1, 2023, 7:00 AM EDT
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INDIANAPOLIS – Santino Ferrucci was in tears after last Sunday’s 107th Indy 500.

The AJ Foyt Racing driver from Woodbury, Connecticut had just driven the best race of his career, only to have the final yellow flag of the race fly just a second or two before he would have been in position for the win.

The field had just been given the green flag with four laps to go and Ferrucci was charging in the No. 14 Chevrolet into Turn 1, about to pass both Josef Newgarden for second place, which would have put him in prime position to draft past Marcus Ericsson for the victory.

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But IndyCar race control issued the third red flag stoppage in the final 15 laps of the race and with Ferrucci 2 inches behind Newgarden’s Chevrolet, he was lined up third.

When IndyCar had the remaining drivers refire the engines for three-quarters of a lap behind the Pace Car followed by a one-lap green and white flag dash to the finish, Ferrucci knew there was little he could do to get past the front two cars.

Newgarden passed Ericsson on the backstretch and went on to take the checkered flag for his first Indianapolis 500 victory. Ericsson was just 0.0974-of-a-second away from winning the Indy 500 for the second year in a row and Ferrucci was 0.5273-of-a-second away from winning his first career NTT IndyCar Series race.

It was a fantastic effort for Ferrucci, but to come so close to winning the biggest race in the world, the kid from Connecticut was heartbroken.

“We were so good this month,” Ferrucci told NBC Sports after climbing out of his car. “When you are that fast all month long, you just want it that much more. The way we did everything to finish the race under green, it’s great for the fans, IndyCar did the right thing, but sometimes it’s a tough pill to swallow restarting third like that when you are really second.

“It’s all timing and scoring. That doesn’t lie. If it says we are third, we are third. It’s very bittersweet.”

When Ericsson and Newgarden were both “Unleashing the Dragon” with the draft-breaking zigzag moves at the end of the race, Ferrucci admitted he was hoping it would play into his favor if those two made contact ahead of him.

“I was hoping and praying because when you are third, that’s all you can do – hope and pray,” Ferrucci said.

His prayers were not answered, but his determination to win the Indianapolis 500 remains undeterred.

He has never finished outside of the top 10 in the Indianapolis 500. Ferrucci was seventh as a rookie in 2019, fourth in 2020, sixth in 2021, 10th last year and third this past Sunday.

“I love this place,” the driver said. “I love coming here. I’m always so comfortable in the race. We are good at avoiding all of the accidents that happened in front of us.

“We will win it eventually. We have to.”

Ferrucci has proven he likes to rise to the big moments.

“I like the pressure,” he said. “We do well under pressure.

“But you have to take third, sometimes.

“We had a really good shot at winning this race. We made the most of it.”

Ferrucci continues to display the uncanny knack for racing hard and avoiding trouble. When he took the lead in the No. 14 car made famous by his team owner, legendary four-time Indianapolis 500 winner AJ Foyt, many of the fans in the crowd of 330,000 roared with approval.

Ferrucci was in front for 11 laps and was in prime position to pounce at the end, before the final 15 laps brought out red flag fever.

Because of that, and the timing of where he was when the last yellow light came on before the final red, put him in a difficult position to win the race.

“It’s just emotional, bittersweet,” he said. “It was emotional getting in the car, which was kind of strange because you feel like there’s a lot of people that really want this, the team really wants this.

“We worked so hard to be where we were. We ran out front all day long. It’s definitely one of the more difficult races that I’ve probably ever run, and just we also knew that we had a really good car.

“We got really close with Felix Rosenqvist when he was wrecking so very thankful, we were able to avoid that. And then yeah, coming to the end, I think on the second to final restart, me and Marcus battling it into 1, and obviously it going red when it did, it’s part of this place, it’s part of racing, it’s part of the Speedway.

“I’m just bummed. I’m sure Marcus Ericsson thinks the same thing I do.

“All three of us could have won it at any point in time.

“Yeah, it’s bittersweet.”

A few days have passed since Ferrucci was crying when he got out of the race car. He celebrated his birthday on Wednesday by mowing his lawn after a 12-hour drive back to his home in Texas. On Thursday morning, he flies to Detroit to get ready for this weekend’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix on the streets of downtown Detroit.

It has given him a chance to reflect on the biggest weekend of his career.

“Everybody saw on national television I was basically crying,” Ferrucci said. “It’s just one of those competitor things in you that there was so much riding on that race, and it was going so well up until that — it finished really well.

“It wasn’t just pressure to perform but emotional pressure to just be there and to know that we probably had that race won, had it gone yellow two seconds later, it’s just kind of heartbreaking. But still, at the end of the day, you come home in third, to join Helio Castroneves and one other driver, (Harry Hartz, who finished second, second, fourth, fourth and second from 1922-1926), in five of your first five starts in top 10s. And, then you really start to look at what you’ve accomplished at the 500 in your first five starts with four different teams and what you did with A.J. Foyt — what we’ve done at AJ Foyt Racing, who hasn’t had a podium or top 3 since the year 2000 at the Speedway.

“There are so many positives, and that day could have been so much worse. We had so many close calls between pit lane and some of the crashes on track that at the end of the day I was just really, really happy.

“I went to bed that night knowing that I did the best I could, the team did the best they could, and that’s the track.”

Ferrucci stressed that he didn’t have a problem with IndyCar race control doing everything in their power to make sure the race finished the distance under green.

“The way that IndyCar finished under green was 100 percent correct for the fans,” Ferrucci said. “It didn’t affect anything for me. What affected me wasn’t the red, it was the yellow.

“The second it went yellow, had it gone yellow two seconds later had they waited, which you can’t wait when you’re crashing, so there’s nothing you can do, I was in third, I was about 6 inches behind Newgarden, and that’s very clear in the video.

“At the end of the day, nothing changed for me. The fact that they actually went red and restarted the race gave me that opportunity to win again. I just didn’t have a great restart because it’s chaotic when you just go. You’ve got to also remember there’s no restart zone.

“At that point when you’re going green for one lap, it was really cool to see the shootout, I’m not going to lie, but you know that they’re going green, so you were literally at the hands of the leader on a completely random — you could start going into 3 in the middle of 3 and 4 out of 4. He could start the race whenever he wanted to start the race instead of in the zone, so it was completely unpredictable.

“(Ericsson) had a really good jump, and I did not. That’s what took me out of the win at the end of the race. It had nothing to do with IndyCar or the red in my opinion.”

Ferrucci and rookie teammate Benjamin Pedersen helped put a smile on 88-year-old AJ Foyt’s face in what started as the one of the saddest months of Foyt’s life after his wife of 68 years, Lucy, died.

Foyt returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway dealing with grief, but for the past three weeks, he was able to see his racing team return to prominence.

“I think he was really proud,” Ferrucci said of Foyt. “There’s truly two people that understood my emotions and felt my emotions on Sunday. A.J. was one, and Michael Cannon (his engineer) was the other.

“If you look at some of the photos from that day, you can kind of see it in my eyes, just — you really have to have it in your hands and then lose it in your hands to kind of understand that feeling of when you work that hard. You have to understand you’re coming from a team with two cars, a budget that’s a quarter of the size of Penske and Ganassi, and that’s all month long. We wanted it probably that much more than everybody else that day.

“To come up that short, A.J.’s finished second and third on dominant days in the ’70s, and he talked about those races, where we had the car to win. We were by far the best car at the end of that race. Once the Team McLarens were out of it and the 10 car and the 21 had the incident in pit lane, that left us.

“We were the car to win, and yeah, just sitting third knowing there’s nothing you can do, after all that hard work, yeah, it’s a feeling that very few people would understand.

“But he was incredibly proud of I think what the organization accomplished. I’m very proud of Larry and what Larry Foyt has done with the team because Larry has had control of this team since 2007, and to see him get his first podium as a team boss and team owner at the speedway was huge.

“I think everybody was incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished.”

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500