Leah Pruett will step clear of the NHRA drag racing form in 2024 to concentrate on settingup a folk with Tony Stewart. Her NASCAR Corridor of Repute husband will change her upcoming season within the Manage Gasoline dragster that Pruett drove to a career-best third-place end within the NHRA standings this occasion.
Pruett and Stewart married simply over two years in the past.
“This is an incredibly personal decision, and what led to making this decision are other personal situations that have happened in my life and our lives,” Pruett instructed The Related Press in an interview with Stewart. “Time is not on anyone’s side, and time is not gender neutral. But when it comes to being a female and a female racer, time is particularly not on your side. One of the decision-making factors was, ‘What do we want our life to look like when we have a family?’ And it is easy to sit back and have the immediate view that we’ve got this killer race team and we can do what we didn’t do this year, which is win a championship.
“However stepping again and enthusiastic about longer term and what our folk looks as if, it was once simply the fitting future on the proper choice.”
Pruett won two races this season in the Dodge Top Fuel dragster driving for Tony Stewart Racing, which won the Funny Car championship with Matt Hagan. Pruett has 12 career Top Fuel victories. Stewart ran the full NHRA season in 2023 in the Top Alcohol Dragster class.
Pruett turns 36 in May, six days after Stewart will celebrate his 53rd birthday. The two became inseparable in 2020 during the early days of the pandemic as Stewart, who had already retired from full-time racing, turned his attention to drag racing.
The three-time NASCAR champion and one-time IndyCar champion fell 21 points short in his first season of becoming the first driver to complete the trifecta with an NHRA title. He scored four wins in his first full year of NHRA competition as a driver and has expanded his racing empire to field Dodge dragsters for Pruett and two-time Funny Car champion Hagan the past two seasons.
Stewart’s racing properties include Stewart-Haas Racing in NASCAR, the Tony Stewart Racing sprint car team, the Superstar Racing Experience all-star series and ownership in several grassroots racetracks across the U.S.
The decision for Pruett to take 2024 off to focus on starting a family was made earlier this year and would not have changed even if she had won the Top Fuel championship.
Pruett told the AP that she suffers from Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune disorder that prevents her thyroid from producing enough hormones. She is unsure how her condition will affect her attempt to get pregnant.
“That performs an element into my condition, which means that I want extra future to begin a folk,” she told the AP. “The rationale I carry that up is as a result of population can relate to that and there’s a human component past simply, ‘Oh, it’s the fitting future for us and the whole thing is so stunning for us.’
“Hashimoto’s gives me a lot of challenges throughout the year in racing, and it took a lot to get that under control just to race, more or less under control to start a family,” she stated. “There are no guarantees or promises on when I will be back in the seat, but I have every intention of returning as soon as I can. Everything in my heart says that I will return to driving Top Fuel as soon as I feel ready.”
As for Stewart, the staff proprietor, taking up his spouse’s seat, Stewart was once adamant it was once a staff choice made via Pruett and staff Neal Strausbaugh then the duo scoured the marketplace for to be had replacements.
“My goal is to not suck, to not get fired by my wife and to not kill myself driving this thing,” Stewart stated then making the announcement Thursday in Indianapolis.
He insisted he didn’t ask for the activity or drive the staff into opting for him to fill his spouse’s seat. After all, the go he confirmed in a single season racing the Manage Alcohol dragster and his immersion with the staff made him the herbal selection.
“To be a competitive, professional race car driver and have to make the decision to take yourself out of the seat to start a family is not a position most males would want to be put in,” Stewart stated. “We had discussed starting a family, and this was her decision. In those discussions, we came to the conclusion that the timing was up to her. I was very supportive as to whether she wanted to do it now or years from now.
“I’m very humbled that Leah and Neal felt I used to be the driving force to fill in for her. I think commemorated that I will do this for my spouse and this staff.”
