In the offseason, NASCAR and racing legend Tony Stewart constructed the Tony Stewart Racing team with nitro Funny Car driver Matt Hagan and his wife, Top Fuel driver Leah Pruett.

Hagan’s team has not missed a beat, winning three races.

Pruett’s team, however, has had its share of struggles. Through 10 races, Pruett had a 5-9 elimination round record.

All that was forgotten on Sunday at the Dodge Power Brokers NHRA Mile-High Nationals.

Pruett won her first race of the season and was awarded the win the finals when her opponent Shawn Langdon – following his burnout – was rolling back NHRA officials noticed a leak underneath the DHL dragster and Langdon was forced to shut off.

Pruett, although she had a bye, clocked a stout 3.884-second elapsed time at 316.38 mph in his Dodge Power Brokers sponsored dragster.

“This view never gets old, and that's the first time you've said Top Fuel winner for Tony Stewart Racing, so that will also never get old,” Pruett said. “But I will say that coming up here to the mountain, we threw everything at it, and it was way too much, and we tried to rotate the Earth. And I’m so I'm really thankful, we're all very thankful for four qualifying runs, and I think that has a lot to do with the Bandimere family, and that's part of the reason we got to be where we're at right now.”

“That allowed us to have two different pathways of performance, and if we got our act together in Q2 we did with the 78, then we could go a different route and test, and that went well. And then we said, ‘Okay, well, let's go back and put together a program for race day." And that's just a luxury that Mike and Neal have not had this entire season, because we haven't been going that many rounds. So, when we say that the qualifying rounds make a difference, they really do.

This was Pruett’s 10th career Top Fuel victory and her first since the first Pomona, Calif., race in 2021.

Stewart was attendance Sunday and on the starting line to see his wife claim the victory.

“That’s the love of my life down there holding that Wally,” Stewart said. “She’s been super patient, but I can tell you one thing of all the places we go to on the circuit, Denver is the one she circles. Denver is the one she loves the most and the thing she talks about is how much she loves the fans at Denver. The support of the fans here means so much to her. For her to win her first race with this group and this organization means the world to here, I can tell you that.”

Pruett defeated Antron Brown, Clay Millican, Justin Ashley, and Langdon on Sunday for her win.

“Coming into race day, it was cloudless, and it was hot, and UVs were high, and we had to back off,” Pruett said. “And we were very comfortable in our tuning window, except you're never comfortable when you're racing Antron Brown in the other lane. And I've been focusing really hard on trying to be, like I said earlier, emotionless, and he's the one that actually taught me that. And so, when you come to a race this, the Dodge Power Brokers Mile-High Nationals, and you think your adrenaline's high, and you just learn over time to regulate that. I'm not saying master that, but you do a little bit better of a job.

“We had that 3.91 and everything looked good, and then we put a feeder motor in it, and we went to race Clay and we were in the right lane. And like I said, the left and right lanes are very different here. It's just, you have to tune your capabilities differently towards them. And that's what we focused on. There was a time where we had, I mean, almost two and a half hours in between rounds. That might have been the run after that. But, anyway, I pedaled it half-track, and they got us to the finish line with that 4.05 but sheered all the bolts off the flywheel. We ended up having to change that motor too. And that's the first time that this Dodge team has had to go through three blocks in one weekend. By that time Hagan's team had been out. And so, they came over and they did a phenomenal job of just being the support there to be able to make those quick turnarounds. Then going into race Justin Ashley, oh, that was the one where we had a lot of time, and I have my practice tree that's hooked up to the injector, and it's as realistic as possible. You're in your own cockpit, and you're practicing, and I broke it.”

So, Pruett went to Plan B to prepare to race Ashley.

“It (the practice tree) was giving me wrong readings,” she said. “I said, ‘No, and now I'm racing Justin.’ So, then I hopped on the Wi-Fi, and I played a bunch of Tetris in between signing with fans, that seems to work. And I learned that from Tony. He plays a lot of games on his phone, but it helps him clear his mind, and keep him up on his reactions for his race. Which I do want to say, for those who don't know, he won last night in SRX.

“So, we have joked this morning, like, ‘Come on, let's keep it in the family. Let's get another TSR win this weekend." So that was great. And then after we were able to beat Justin and come into the finals, I did mention to Alan Reinhart about, ‘Shawn is kind of... he's difficult. He's won here on the mountain before back in juniors.’ We might not be the most compatible people in personalities and like each other or whatnot, but it didn't matter. My team has got its act together this weekend, and they are making phenomenal strides and our attitudes are elevated. Our performance is there, and no matter what happened in the other lane, I had confidence for it. So, we were able to rip off an 88, which was going to be hard to beat.”

Then Pruett took a moment to discuss her feelings while doing her victory press conference.

“I don't know what you guys are seeing here is just pure gratitude for my team, for the belief that Tony has had in us,” she said. “I mean, we've had a tough season. You might think that a team owner might be breathing down your throat a little bit by now and wanting a little bit more results compared to our Funny Car team, but he is a realist, and we're optimistic and these are long term goals, and you guys are just seeing, right now, the short-term results of it.”

Pruett was quick to admit the media was making more of her team’s struggles than the team itself.

“I think the frustration might lie outside of our bowl to be totally honest, and maybe to the fans or to those watching, and when I say that ‘We might not be having the win lights, but we know our progress.’ And it's fine, if not everybody believes us, but we have the confidence to know that eventually it will show. When I talk about the attitudes that we have, and that they're high, that's the exact opposite of being frustrated. I mean, here and there we communicate a lot about our strengths and our weaknesses and where to improve upon, and that has been just in any relationship, the absolute skeleton key to success. And so, frustration, that's not the way to get to the finish line. So that's why I'm really thankful for the fans that have hung on with us, transferred over, that continue to grow with us. And this is their win as much as it's ours".