Leah Pritchett delivers fastest unofficial ET in NHRA history, 3.654 seconds

Tony DiZinno

On Friday, Courtney Force set the unofficial fastest pass in NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series Funny Car history during the Nitro Spring Training test at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park.

And on Saturday, Top Fuel driver Leah Pritchett did one better – just dropping the unofficial fastest pass in NHRA series history.

Pritchett metaphorically lit the drag strip on fire in her Papa John’s dragster for Don Schumacher Racing, with a new fastest pass at 3.654 seconds over the 1,000-foot distance, at a speed of 331.85 mph. Even more impressive was the fact it came in the heat of the afternoon, with track temperatures north of 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

The official Top Fuel ET record in competition is a 3.671-second pass, which Steve Torrence set July 31, 2016 at Sonoma.

Pritchett instead opted to thank her crew for tuning her dragster to this scorching time.

“I have to be totally honest, we didn’t come out here to be the quickest,” Pritchett said, via the official NHRA website.

“That wasn’t the goal. The goal was to get the power that we created in the offseason to the track. We exceeded our expectations yesterday and today we did the same. For it to blast off at .65 on a warmer day today, man I’m stoked for (my team), that’s a lot of hard work and they just put it on the track.”

Pritchett endured a roller coaster 2016 season with a change of team but an eventual Countdown appearance.