When you start as the king of the hill, there’s usually only one way to go. 

Josh Hart admittedly didn’t have the kind of season he hoped for after winning the Pep Boys Callout race in Gainesville, Fla. And while 12 first-round losses could have been enough for the Ocala, Fla.-based Top Fuel driver to send up a distress signal, he considers the 2023 season one of continual character building. 

“What overall stands out as a positive is the fact that the R+L Carriers team continued to grind and prepare and work well together,” Hart explained. “Even through the hard times when we didn’t have the season that we wanted, we never went negative. It was impressive, you know, you never saw any flare-ups or any type of different emotions. The whole team kept the same chemistry and we all kept working towards the same goal.”

Then, after a season reserved for a dumpster fire, with one race left to go in the season, fate threw Hart and the team a bone. Hart took out champion contender Leah Pruett and eventual champion Doug Kalitta to reach the semi-finals of the NHRA Nevada Nationals in Las Vegas. 

The critical takeaway from Vegas was not who he beat but instead that he beat someone. Hart hadn’t turned on a winlight in seven consecutive events leading up to that monumental breakthrough.

“I look at every round the same, you know; we’re obviously trying to do whatever we can do to win no matter who we are beside,” Hart said. “We just want to advance to the next round. All I felt like I could control were my reaction times and my own performance. It paid off a little bit at the end of the season.”

The Vegas success, followed by a quarter-final finish in Pomona, was instrumental in Hart finishing in the Top Fuel top ten in points. Hart has finished in the top ten in two of his three seasons of competing in Top Fuel.

Winning the Pep Boys All-Star Callout back in March presented a similar feeling of two years earlier when he won in his Top Fuel debut. 

“Winning is always the best feeling, and that’s why we do it,” Hart explained. “Once you get a taste of it, you can’t get enough, so, you know, we keep working away and keep trying and grinding and just doing whatever you can to try to get back to that spot. I tasted success so early in my career, so it’s hard to be at the bottom of the barrel. We had to fight to get into the Top Ten and punch into the Top Ten. I was proud about that. When you really reflect and look at it objectively, we went a couple of rounds further than some other guys, and that’s not us, you know, so we need to improve on our consistency and our round wins.”

While some teams would have hurriedly made changes, Hart understood it was best to stay the course. His intuition was rewarded with the late-season success. 

“[Crewchief] Ron [Douglas] and I had a deal that we made the first season we worked together,” Hart explained. “We don’t get to yell at each other, regardless of how things shake out, you know, he knows when he makes a mistake, and I know when I make a mistake. We really pride ourselves on self-reflection. Our relationship is awesome. It’s still kind of in its infancy, but I’ve seen him in the dumps. I’ve seen him at highlights. He’s seen me in the dumps, and he’s seen me in highlights.”
 
Hart said he retains a delicate balance that always returns to one key factor - humbleness. 
 
“I try very much to be humble,” Hart said. “I’ve had the rug yanked out from underneath me before, so you got to stay in your lane. I get to play with race cars, I get to drive race cars, and I get to build cars. I’ve been car crazy since I was like two years old. I’d say the only thing that really trumps that is my family. My wife, Brittanie, is a badass. She handles all the waves that I throw in the business world and she takes it like a champ. We have two young kids, and she’s equally awesome with them. That’s probably the highlight of my career, my family first and then my racing.”

And when you view life through Hart’s eyes, a subpar season is hardly cause for concern when one is surrounded by so many positives.