Leah Pruett ran three nearly identical passes Sunday at Maryland International Raceway, extending her return season to a semifinals finish at the inaugural NHRA Potomac Nationals before losing to reigning world champion Doug Kalitta by fifteen-thousandths of a second.
Pruett qualified third at 3.771 seconds, then posted elimination times of 3.786, 3.786, and 3.787 across three rounds. The consistency carried her past Spencer Massey and Will Smith before the semifinals matchup with Kalitta, who ran 3.772 to Pruett’s 3.787 for the win. According to reports from the event, the loss was Pruett’s third against Kalitta in four meetings this season. She entered the round 120 points behind Kalitta in the standings and remains third in Top Fuel points after seven races.
The bracket-racing precision matters because Pruett is seven events into a comeback season after a two-year break to start a family with her husband, Tony Stewart. She sat out 2024 and 2025 while Stewart drove the Top Fuel dragster to the 2025 regular season championship. Her return was met with skepticism in the pit area, but six consecutive first-round wins to open the season settled that question. Sunday’s semifinals run was her deepest of the year aside from a final-round appearance in Phoenix, where she beat Kalitta in the semis before losing the final.
Pruett’s crew chiefs, Neal Strausbaugh and Mike Domagala, ran two different setups across the weekend. She described the approach as proof the team is confident enough in the baseline to experiment mid-event. The track at Maryland International Raceway, a sea-level facility hosting its first NHRA national event, turned out better than expected for the 12,000-horsepower cars despite concerns about marginal surface conditions.
Matt Hagan’s weekend ended in the first round when his TSR American Rebel Light Dodge//SRT Hellcat suffered a parts failure against Austin Prock. Hagan qualified sixth and was seeking his second win of the season. Prock, the reigning Funny Car world champion, went on to take the Potomac Nationals title. Reports from the event indicate Prock had also beaten Hagan on Saturday in the Mission Challenge, a format addition to the weekend’s schedule.
The first-round exit drops Hagan to fifth in Funny Car points after a weekend in which he lost third place in the standings. The four-time world champion has won four times previously at New England Dragway, where the tour heads this weekend for the New England Nationals presented by bproauto. Three races are scheduled in the next four weekends, a compressed stretch that offers Hagan and crew chief Mike Knudsen a quick chance to recover.
Tony Stewart qualified fourth in Top Fuel for the R+L Carriers Elite Motorsports team but lost traction mid-track in the first round against Shawn Reed. Stewart ranks fourth in Top Fuel points behind Shawn Langdon, Kalitta, and Pruett after seven of 20 events. The NASCAR Hall of Famer is driving his own dragster this season while Pruett returned to competition in the second TSR Top Fuel entry.
The Maryland event drew a sellout crowd Saturday, marking the fourth sellout day of NHRA’s 75th anniversary season. The series moves to Epping, New Hampshire, for the New England Nationals with qualifying rounds Friday at 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., Saturday sessions at 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m., and eliminations Sunday at 11 a.m. Fox will broadcast the finals Sunday at 3 p.m. Eastern.
Source: Dodge. Images courtesy of Dodge.
