Josh Hart turned a lot of heads last season. The part-time driver from Ocala, Fla, became the first driver since Darrell Russell in 2001 to win in his debut when Hart scored a massive win at the 2021 NHRA season opener in Gainesville, Fla., last season.

Hart, who appeared in 12 races last season, ran strong every time he showed up at the racetrack and would score his second career win later in the season in Charlotte, putting the rest of the Top Fuel class on notice that he was a force to be reckoned with.

With all the talk in the offseason about the stacked field in Top Fuel heading into the new year, Hart, who was stepping up to run a full season in 2022, would be expected to continue his outstanding performance from the year prior and be one of the frontrunners in the class.  

However, with the addition of a new car to begin the year, the R&L Carriers / TechNet Dragster driver would surprisingly struggle out of the gate. Through the first nine races of the 2022 season, Hart would advance past the second round of competition just twice, making it to the final round at the four-wide in Charlotte but endure five first-round losses, and would sit eighth in the standing. Most people would call that the evident "sophomore slump."

"Last year was a storybook year," Hart said. "Everybody talks about the sophomore slump, and we found it. We hurt a lot of stuff in the spring, but the crew has been very patient with me. They always give me a great race car."

Hart admits trying to figure out the new car this season, added with making the jump to a full-time team this year, has maybe thrown them a little bit of a curveball to start. But Hart fully credits his team, along with business partner and crew chief Ron Douglas for keeping the ship afloat.

"So I think we did 12 races last year, so we doubled it," Hart said. "You got the financial end of it, which is manageable, thanks to TechNet and R&L Carriers and all the people that help us. But the staffing alone to make an entire season is unbelievable. You wouldn't understand until you realize that you break three engines, and you got to repair those, and you burn up four sets of heads, and you got to repair those. These guys behind me deserve all the credit. Ron [Douglas] as my business partner, runs the show. He's got these guys well-trained, and he does a fabulous job maintaining the whole
program."

But through the last two races on tour, Hart and his team have found a bit of rejuvenation. A final-round appearance in his sponsor R&L Carrier's backyard in Norwalk, Ohio, followed up with a semifinal finish at the most recent race in Denver, has seen the second-year driver jump to fifth in points heading here to Sonoma for the Denso Sonoma Nationals. The current trajectory has him excited heading into the second half of the year.

"It's been off-the-charts epic," Hart said. "The team was very patient with me in this new car. In the spring, we tested a lot of things. Some things worked, some things didn't. So, to go into Norwalk and runner-up there and then go out in the semifinals in Denver, obviously, we feel like
we're making good progress in the right direction."

Hart, who's also a team owner on top of driving the race car, credits a little advice he got from a particular sponsor that he used to help turn his performance around, as well.

"I'm learning every single pass who I am as a driver, and I've been able to focus a lot lately on just having fun again," Hart explained. "I believe that great leadership starts at the top, and believe it or not, the owner of R&L Carriers called me one day, and he said, ‘You don't look like you're having any fun. You need to go back to the basics, kid, and have some fun.’ And we wound up in the runner-up position in Norwalk. So I'd have to say he was right."

Having run just a part-time schedule last season, this is Hart's first time competing on the Western Swing in Top Fuel. While he's more than enjoying his time racing on the three-race NHRA summer tradition, with just a handful of races before the Countdown, Hart knows there's still a ton of room for improvement to put themselves up there with the frontrunners in the class.

"I can't say that there's not room for improvement," Hart said, “but we're very happy to be in the top half of the top 10. And hopefully, we can maintain that going into the Countdown. So just like I said, one
race at a time." – Darin Williams Jr.