Leah Pritchett has literally seen it all this season.

From the high of winning her first career race in Phoenix, to the low of losing her ride shortly thereafter when her BVR team disbanded. From the high of driving for one of the strongest teams in all of drag racing, to the low of trying to find funding just to make one more run in a weekend.

There really isn’t anything left that can be thrown at the 28-year-old California native.

“I think it was totally a shock for me. I think I skipped the whole 12-step program. There was no down in the dumps and going, oh my gosh, this sucks, my season is done. That part of my thinking was totally skipped over,” Pritchett said. “The thing that helped me stay strong is the fans. The messages I get from little girls to grown men telling me that I’m an inspiration to them, that means something.”

At the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Summit Motorsports Park, the journey continued for Pritchett as she was again thrown into a unique situation as an employee of Don Schumacher Racing while driving for the underfunded Lagana race team. In an attempt to keep her name in the headlines, and locked in the Countdown to the Championship, Pritchett is taking every opportunity get behind the wheel and keep collecting points.

While Pritchett was able to collect a round win in the Nitro Ninja dragster over Richie Crampton on Sunday, the situation is still far from ideal as she bounces from race team to race team, praying to find some normalcy in her life.

“I think the biggest misconception is that I am just floating around out here. But there is a goal, and that goal is DSR,” Pritchett said. “I’m a DSR employee, driver. We don’t have the funds right now for the immediate races, so the Lagana’s are helping me fill in these races while I move forward. The big picture is DSR in 2017. The Countdown. But there are no promises.

“When BVR decided to disassemble, I refused to let my dream die of making the Countdown and a championship chase. So far we’ve been successful. I took most of my team from BVR over with me to DSR and that has helped keep the fire burning inside of me.

“My frustration right now is that I can’t be the driver that I know how to be given the situation. I want to show Don Schumacher and show the fans and show the companies of the world that I am a badass driver.”

And part of that frustration is the routine. There is a world of difference between coming out to the racetrack with DSR and competing during the weekend with a smaller team.

“There is a world of difference between the two or three teams I have competed with this year,” Pritchett said. “Let’s start with chapter two; racing with the Lagana’s. They’re a full-fledged operation with their crew intact and I actually get to do less with the car, which actually allows me to focus more on driving, being with the fans, and being more relaxed. We get to blare our music in the pit and we don’t have stanchions between us and the fans.

“Switching over to races with DSR, I actually do a lot more on that race car in regards to fuel, parachutes and being in unison with the team 100 percent. From the track, to the lounge discussing runs, everything is more streamlined. On top of that, there is a full itinerary of things to do. It is very scheduled; when you come to the track, when you eat, when you warm-up, plus there are more people involved. There are meet-and-greets, meetings, every minute is planned.

“I don’t wear a Fitbit, but the tracker I do have, there is a lot of mileage on there.”

Of course, it is not just how her time is used, but it is the drive itself, the differences in the cars, that affects her performance on the track.

“The Lagana’s car runs a five-disk clutch and the DSR car has a six-disc. It is hard sometimes reminding yourself, okay, when I am in each car, what is it going to feel like,” Pritchett said. “These cars drive different from a steering standpoint. Every single one of them have different brakes, they have a different tug. When you run the five-disc it hammers you hard at about 750-800 feet. If I had that exact same feeling in a DSR car, I would think the crank was going to drop out the bottom of it.

“You have to retrain your brain every single time.”

As Pritchett awaits the next challenge in her life and adjusts to more changes - and more cars - in the future, she remains positive that, in the end, things will work out. And, even though she never really had any driver that she looked up to as a kid, she hopes that her experience, her struggles over the past year, will help her be an inspiration to others.

“I never had anybody that I truly aspired to be or looked up to,” Pritchett said. “It’s a hard question to answer when people ask who I looked up to when I was young. There wasn’t a person I wanted to be. I wanted to make my own path and be an inspiration to others.

“It’s like I can’t let them down. I can’t let myself down. I can’t let my team down. And for everyone that has sacrificed to keep my dream alive, I can’t let them down.