It’s a known fact that to get to the second round; one must win the first round. And, after seven consecutive first-round losses, to get not only a round win but to come within a round of the final can make one feel like they have won a national event.

By nature, Top Fuel racer Josh Hart is a positive thinker. He has tried to see the good always in life when the solid ground often appears to be sinking sand.

But in taking out two 2023 NHRA Top Fuel point leaders in one day and scoring his first round wins since the NHRA Heartland Nationals back in August at Heartland Motorsports Park, Hart was almost as overjoyed in the forward progress as he was in winning the Pep Boys All-Star Shootout to start the season.

“Absolutely priceless,” Hart said. “You go through these little. I don’t want to say slump, but it is, and you just are like, why am I doing this? You literally could go to Utah and buy a brand new truck, and new camper, and a new side-by-side and have fun for a week and probably save money than what it costs you to do this on a weekend.”

As much as winning the largest payday at Gainesville to start the season put him on Cloud 9, losing 12 times in the first round left him feeling lower than low.

“It is pretty tough,” Hart said. “I just do my best to stay calm, and I’ve got a lot of faith in my team. I have a lot of faith in Ron Douglas, and it’s not easy. You got to know that when you’re down as low as we are right now, you’re not where you’re supposed to be, and it’ll all work out.”

Sometimes, having faith when one is deep in a valley of gloom is easier said than done. Yet, for Hart, it was the most substantial thing he had to hold onto.

“Every single round,” Hart said. “You say a prayer before you make a pass. And it’s not always to win; it’s just you want to make sure you’re doing things right. You want to make sure you’re safe, you want to make sure that your crew is on their game, and you want to make sure that everybody’s morale is good. There’s so many different emotions you have to deal with. And truthfully, the team has handled it very well.”

While doom and gloom could have been easily held onto, despite losing, Hart quickly points out he tried many times to find at least one positive in the negative.

“I think when you’re struggling the way that we have been struggling, you focus really, really hard on your own personal performance because that’s really all you can control,” Hart said. “So I don’t know what my average is for the season, but if you took out probably two or three of the little bloopers that I made for reaction time, I bet you I’m right there with Justin Ashley. So you just focus on your lights and keep the things straight, keep it in the groove. And like I said, you really focus on your own personal performance.”

His personal performance couldn’t have started on a higher note with the Gainesville triumph, and ironically, it was Salinas, the NHRA Nevada Nationals champion, whom Hart beat in the final round of the specialty race. From that point, Hart fell into a mire with three consecutive first round losses to start the season, including the one to Tony Schumacher to start the season. He rebounded with back-to-back semi-final finishes in the Four-Wide events and a runner-up in Chicago. Still, something was amiss. 
 
 “It started in Gainesville, believe it or not,” Hart said. “We went up against Tony Schumacher, and Ron had everybody covered up. We were the car to beat, and then I missed it on the tree, and it just never really recovered after that. We had a couple of finals, but we just didn’t have the normal; I don’t want to say swagger, but it wasn’t the same.

“It just seemed like we were close, but no cigar. Every time we were in the finals in Vegas, we were in the finals in Charlotte, in the finals in Chicago, and we just couldn’t get it done. And it’s been that way for two years. We were in the finals in Norwalk the year before. We were in the finals in St. Louis the year before.”

Maybe it was just bad fortunes, or maybe the driver who won in his Top Fuel driving debut couldn’t sneak up on the competition anymore.

“I’ve never been a very boisterous person, so I don’t know if that makes me sneaky or not,” Hart said. “But I just go in there, and I do the best that I can every single round. And last year in particular, I struggled getting comfortable all year. I don’t know why. The first year was a storybook. I don’t know if that was because it was a partial season. Maybe we all had more time to regroup and prepare for the next event. And then our first full season, that was when I was like, holy crap, this is a monumental effort by everybody. 
 
 “There was a small army behind us to get this thing through a full season, and I struggled with it. And then this year, we were a little bit more prepared. I can’t complain about the car as far as comfort goes, because it’s the best car that I’ve ever had. It was built for me, but the performance just isn’t there right now.”

Hart believes his initial success in his rookie year was largely in part fueled by the brevity of the season.

“It wasn’t an endurance race,” Hart explained. “It was a show up, throw down, and go home. So now that we’ve been carved out of stone and prepped for the endurance, hopefully we can turn this heat back up. I’m ready to go. We’ve got some great people behind us. It’s just hard. It’s hard when you’re not where you think you should be.”
Hart understands the joys of triumph and, with this latest spell, the frustrations of defeat.

“When you taste it, you want it that much more, and you need to show up with your A-game every time because now everybody’s gunning for you,” Hart said. “I actually said that during some of the controversy around my short little stint here. I thought, well, you can look at it in a negative light. Everybody’s picking on you, blah, blah. Or you can look at it as they just expect better from me. And that’s what I went with. I think they just expected better from me, and I expect better from myself. I want to perform at that level at all times.”