NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals Event Recap

NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals

June 17-19 | Bristol, Tennessee

Event Recap

Leah Pruett, driver of the Mobil 1 Top Fuel Dragster:

●  Earned No. 15 provisional qualifying position in Q1 on Friday (12.415 ET at 65.23 mph).

●  Earned No. 13 qualifying position in Q2 on Saturday (4.277 ET at 209.17 mph). 

●  Secured No. 10 qualifying position in Q3 on Saturday (3.867 ET at 318.32 mph).  

●  Advanced to Round 2 on Sunday:

    ●  Round 1: 3.835 ET at 324.36 mph, beat Austin Prock (4.107 ET at 298.27 mph). 

    ●  Round 2: 3.960 ET at 306.74 mph, lost to Steve Torrence (3.891 ET at 315.86 mph).

●  Currently 12^th in the Top Fuel championship standings, 378 points behind points leader Brittany Force. 

Matt Hagan, driver of the TruHarvest Farms Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car:

●  Earned No. 3 provisional qualifying position in Q1 on Friday (4.172 ET at 235.23 mph).

●  Scored one bonus point for third-quickest run of the session.

●  Unable to make a run in Q2 on Saturday due to mechanical malfunction. Following Q2, Hagan was the No. 7 provisional qualifier based off Friday’s Q1 run. 

●  Secured No. 4 qualifying position in Q3 on Saturday (4.014 ET at 318.09 mph). 

●  Advanced to Round 2 on Sunday:

    ●  Round 1: 4.169 ET at 279.79 mph, defeated Phil Burkhart (7.915 ET at 76.96 mph). 

    ●  Round 2: 4.914 ET at 201.70 mph, lost to Alexis DeJoria (4.068 ET at 317.12 mph). 

●  Currently leads the Funny Car championship standings with a 42-point advantage over his nearest pursuer, Robert Hight.

Notes of Interest

●  With an average temperature of 124 degrees, Bristol was home to the hottest track conditions the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series has had this season.

●  By winning Round 1 at Bristol, Hagan has 24 round wins this season to lead the Funny Car category.  

●  The NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals marked Pruett’s ninth start at Bristol. She advanced to Round 2 for the third time this season.

●  Hagan lives in Christiansburg, Virginia, located 120 miles northwest of Bristol, making the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals his home race. It was a special Father’s Day weekend for Hagan as he had numerous family members at the track supporting him.  

Leah Pruett, Driver of the Mobil 1 Top Fuel Dragster

“Some weekends we have a very consistent racecar and we get to progress with our ETs (elapsed time) and then sometimes we have a weekend like this where we were on both sides of the spectrum. I think we learned the most about our racecar that we have all year. When we smoked the tires in the first round of qualifying on Friday, from an engine standpoint, we were less than powered, which is what we wanted and it shows that our clutch program is too aggressive. We’ve spent our entire weekend dialing in our clutch program. That’s something that’s been running very well all year and has not been problematic. Our car has been very cooperative when making all of our tuning adjustments. Winning first round was big, and we were able to pick up from our qualifying efforts of an .86, but going into second round, we dropped a cylinder at the step and that’s the first time we’ve done that all year, including testing. Between now and Norwalk (Ohio), we’re diving into fuel-system wise where that is coming from. There are a lot of ways to lose and a lot of ways to win. We’re going to continue to work on our ways to win. There are cars that can drop a whole cylinder and their engines can’t hang on. We dropped a cylinder at the hit and I was still able to hold on to give Steve Torrence a run for his money. We even left the line first and that is a testament to our Mobil 1 synthetic motor oil – it gave us every fighting chance we had. Other motors can’t be put to that test. We have a lot of confidence in our Mobil 1 product and Dodge HEMI engine. We’re onto some good momentum and look forward to Norwalk.” 

Matt Hagan, Driver of the TruHarvest Farms Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car

“What an awesome weekend at Bristol as far as fans, friends and family members at the track that’s two hours from my home. There were a lot of Matt Hagan shirts everywhere. It was a really neat experience being able to run the TruHarvest Farms car for the first time in the NHRA and debut it here at Bristol. It was a super tricky racetrack out there today and these cars are just as hard to pull back as they are forward, and we just had a really fast racecar. You have some give and take in life. It’s just one of those things where having a fast racecar like that is tough and tricky. I have all the confidence in my guys to roll into Norwalk with our Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat and keep doing what we’re doing. This was a challenging track, but the NHRA did a good job trying to prep it. It’s tough for all teams, so it comes down to which tuner, team and driver can find the right combination to get down the track.” 

Next Up

The next event on the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series schedule is the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals June 23-26 at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio.