Greg Leahy finished his season exactly the way every racer dreams — on a winning note. The veteran Fuel Altered driver completed a clean sweep at the California Hot Rod Reunion at Famoso Dragstrip, qualifying No. 1 and racing through a tough field to claim the event victory.
Leahy defeated No. 2 qualifier Vince Karstetter in the final, clocking a 6.064-second run to Karstetter’s 6.040, using a razor-sharp .043 holeshot to take the win. The victory capped a stellar weekend and closed out the 2025 NHRA Heritage Series season with a defining moment for the long-running Fuel Altered standout.
Leahy’s march to the final included round wins over Brandon Seraphine and former Bakersfield March Meet Funny Car champion James Day. Karstetter’s route to the championship round began from the No. 2 qualifying spot, where he dispatched Chris Bates and Matthew Leonard before meeting Leahy in the final.
The Bakersfield victory represented redemption for Leahy after a frustrating summer campaign. “Oh, definitely a huge high note to end the off-season like that,” Leahy said. “Probably the biggest thing is we’ve got the car to come around. We had a bad summer with this car. We were just fighting clutch disc, valve train problems, and it was very, very frustrating. We kind of know how to run this car and it just wouldn’t react to anything we were doing. And this weekend, it started reacting.”
Leahy credited persistence and teamwork for the turnaround, saying that after months of trial and error, the car finally responded the way his team expected. The improvement came just in time for Bakersfield, a track known for rewarding both horsepower and finesse.
Now with the season behind him, Leahy said his focus turns to offseason adjustments aimed at keeping pace with the rapidly evolving class. “Yeah, we’re going to change the fuel system around a little bit,” Leahy said. “I kind of maxed out my adjustments on the fuel system. I can’t really put more nitro in it, because I can’t get enough fuel to flow. And I’m just going to change some things around. I’m going to try and take transmission out. I’ll drop 80 pounds off this car and just run high gear only. Just try some different things.”
Those changes, he said, could yield a quicker, lighter car when the 2026 Heritage Series season opens. The experimentation fits Leahy’s reputation as a racer who thrives on fine-tuning every detail of his combination.
Leahy has also seen nostalgia drag racing evolve over his long tenure behind the wheel. He said the Fuel Altered class remains competitive but faces challenges as teams balance passion with cost. “The class is pretty competitive,” Leahy said. “It’s expensive to run this class. That’s why I wish more guys would travel. I get it, why they don’t. But there’s only like, I don’t know, four or five traveling cars. I wish more people could travel and so it would be more competitive.”
