Tony Stewart advanced to the quarterfinals in Top Fuel at Sunday’s Summit Racing NHRA Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio, the one bright spot in an otherwise early exit for Tony Stewart Racing. TSR drivers Leah Pruett and Matt Hagan both lost in the first round, ending a weekend that had promised more after both drivers won their previous races two weeks earlier.
Stewart, driving the R+L Carriers/Elite Motorsports Top Fueler, defeated Justin Ashley in the opening round before losing to eventual race winner Maddi Gordon in the quarterfinals when his dragster smoked the tires just off the starting line. Stewart remains fourth in the NHRA Mission Top Fuel standings heading into the West Coast swing at Sonoma Raceway on July 17-19.
Pruett’s exit was the most painful for a TSR team that had looked strong in qualifying. The Arizona racer qualified third with a 3.731 run in her TSR Dodge Top Fuel dragster, then drew the toughest first-round matchup in the field: four-time world champion Antron Brown, who had won at Bristol. In the closest race of the round, Pruett ran 3.781 to Brown’s 3.763, her only first-round defeat in the first 10 races of the 2026 NHRA Mission Drag Racing Series. Brown went on to make the final round.
Pruett remains third in the current NHRA Mission Top Fuel points despite the early loss. She won at Norwalk in her last appearance in 2023 and had been looking to repeat, especially with the race located close to Dodge’s headquarters in Detroit. The sting was sharper for that proximity. She returned to full-time Top Fuel competition in 2026 after a two-year layoff and has scored a runner-up finish at Arizona earlier in the season.
Hagan had his own difficult draw. The four-time NHRA world champion qualified sixth in his TSR Dodge//SRT Hellcat Funny Car and faced Daniel Wilkerson in the first round, the same driver he had beaten in the Bristol final two weeks earlier. Hagan’s car lost traction at half-track with Wilkerson advancing to round two. The loss was uncharacteristic for a driver who, in his 19th season at the controls of a Dodge Funny Car, rarely smokes the tires that far downtrack. Crew chief Mike Knudsen identified bellhousing issues after the run.
Hagan stays in second position in the NHRA Mission Funny Car points standings at the halfway point of the 20-race series. He has two national wins this year and won the Summit Racing Nationals at Norwalk in 2018. The Virginia racer also won the ice cream-eating contest between fellow drag racers on Friday, a small consolation for Sunday’s result. Hagan has never won at Sonoma, the only track on the current tour where he has not taken a victory, and he won Seattle last year.
Two-time Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown champion Mark Pawuk of Akron, Ohio, qualified eighth in the 17-car field and advanced to the quarterfinals at his home track in the all-new Dodge Charger Hustle Stuff Drag Pak.
The TSR Dodge duo returns to nitro action at Sonoma Raceway with qualifying opening on Friday at 5:30 p.m. and 8:10 p.m. PDT. Final eliminations begin at 11 a.m. PDT on Sunday. Stewart is a three-time NASCAR winner at the Sonoma road course during his career, though that experience on the road course offers limited carryover to the dragstrip.
Source: Stellantis. Images courtesy of Stellantis.
