Leah Pritchett's drive keeps her focused on the drag strip

If there’s anyone who can be considered the biggest go-getter in the National Hot Rod Association, it is far and away 29-year-old Leah Pritchett - and she hasn’t forgotten the trials, tests or people who have helped get her to the top echelon of drag racing.

“It’s been an interesting, very inconsistent, non-steady, relentless path to get here,” she said.

The fastest qualifier for today’s eliminations at Sonoma Raceway after setting the Top Fuel track record on Friday night with a quarter-mile time of 3.669, Pritchett has raced hot rods in the NHRA for 21 years, starting as an eight-year old in the juniors and working her way up to near-full-time racing in Top Fuel last year. Each step has presented a different challenge and accomplishment.

Pritchett turned heads on Friday in what is only her second appearance at Sonoma. The Don Schumacher Racing driver also recorded the fastest unofficial Top Fuel speed ever during a test in Chandler earlier this year, at 331.85 miles per hour.

It’s all part of Pritchett’s determined persona. She’s basically grinded, dug and marketed hard for sponsors and racing opportunities since she was a teenager, even accepting a sponsorship deal with a gentleman’s club in Bakersfield when she was running in the NHRA’s historic series in 2010 - and won the championship.

Pritchett considers her Schumacher teammate Antron Brown not just a mentor, but an idol. She pointed to his positive attitude and called him the greatest racer “I’ve ever seen.”

“He’s helped me even before he knew he was helping me, Pritchett said. “Antron has been one of my idols from the moment he moved from Pro Stock bikes to Top Fuel.”

Brown attests to Pritchett’s determination and grit.

“She has want-to, and she has drive. And you can’t teach that to somebody,” Brown said. “You either got that instinct or you don’t. And she works hard at what she does. She works very, very hard.”

Brown knows she’s in a tougher road than others in the sport.

“She’s underneath the microscope. Definitely, for her, being a woman in the sport,” he said. “Everybody hits her from every angle, but the thing about is ?she handles it well and she’s a fighter. That’s one thing I admire about Leah. She fights the fight.”

It doesn’t seem she’ll ever stop looking for that next opportunity or bump in the road, either.

“Hell, I still live in a state of mind that the sky’s going to fall because the sky has fallen on me … my mind is always ready for change and so my focus is on making sure things don’t change.”

That’s because the sky did fall on her pretty hard in 2016.

Last season, Pritchett was driving with Bob Vandergriff Racing when, in April - just weeks into the season - Vandergriff announced an immediate retirement, shutting down all of his race teams immediately. Pritchett then found a ride with another team for one race and organized a brief reunion with Vandergriff the following week at Houston before later joining Schumacher Racing on a part-time basis in May.

She then landed a temporary Papa John’s Pizza sponsorship in August, with owner John Schnatter taking notice of the Pritchetts’ entrepreneurial passion.

At the time Pritchett met Schnatter, she only needed and wanted sponsorship for one race, and the Papa wasn’t sold on it. A conversation she had with Schnatter took it past that.

“He didn’t want to sponsor us,” Pritchett said. “He knew he was being pitched on a race car team and that wasn’t really in their marketing fold. But when we got into a deeper basis of where I was in my career - that matched to where he was at the moment he had to sell his ’71 gold Camaro to be able to technically start Papa John’s - that’s where I was at when I met him.”

Papa John’s signed on for one, two, three and eventually five sponsored races for Pritchett last year.

So far, the driver of the Papa John’s dragster is doing a good job of making sure the sponsorship is paying dividends.

In her second full-time season, Pritchett is third in the Top Fuel standings and won the first two races of the season. And, of course, the No. 1 seed today.

Pritchett will probably always be on guard for a potential change in the future due to her past experiences. And it’s hard to blame her.

But her passion for winning and racing has only pushed her further toward the top of the sport and on a path to be one of the best female drag racers on the circuit.

That and the sky isn’t falling, at least for now.