Take Five With LEAH PRITCHETT

Leah Pritchett has made a name for herself with a hard-knock, but fun-loving perspective on drag racing. The day she turned 8 years old, she began racing Jr. Dragsters with her older sister under the watchful eye of her father (a Bonneville 200 MPH Club Member), before claiming Division 7 championships in 2000 and 2001. She eventually moved into a family-built, 7-second altered Bantam. The family sold it and built their own Nostalgia Funny Car in which Leah earned her fuel license before stumbling into Steve Plueger’s 1972 Mustang Mach I; a wild and nitro-thirsty vintage Funny Car that gave the Redlands, California native an addiction she couldn’t shake until she had found a seat in NHRA Top Fuel. That chance would come from Don Schumacher himself, who signed off on her nitro Funny Car license a decade prior to piloting the NHRA’s purest and most maniacal machines. Since then, she’s set records in several nitro-burners, claimed world championships in NHRA Factory Stock, and has laid it all on the line to make ends meet.

HRM] The background that a lot of people don’t know is that your family was prevalent at Bonneville Salt