Leah Pritchett determined to take back the points lead in Norwalk

Published Jun. 21, 2017 3:57 p.m. ET

Samuel Reiman

Leah Pritchett won three of the five NHRA Top Fuel events to open the 2017 season, but has yet to add another Wally to her trophy collection since.

The performance of her Papa John’s Pizza dragster hasn’t wavered much however, as she still sits second in the points rolling into this weekend’s Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Summit Motorsport Park in Norwalk, Ohio.

Additionally, the 29-year-old California native was able to make it to the final round at last weekend’s NHRA Thunder Nationals at Bristol Dragway in Bristol, Tennessee, where she lost out to Clay Millican.

"Bristol gave us a taste of redemption that we were looking for," she said. "We expect to be able to get a full bite of the track at Norwalk. We're still hungry no matter how many times we've gotten to the final round or how much Papa John's pizza we eat."

Eleven points separate Pritchett from points leader Steve Torrence, whose team writes the paychecks for Leah’s husband Gary. Torrence also lost out to Millican last weekend in the semi-finals, on a day when a hot track surface left a lot of teams and drivers with headaches.

"We'll have a little bit of extra confidence going to Norwalk where it isn't expected to be as hot as Bristol,” said Pritchett. “We admit we didn't have the best tune-up for those conditions but we learned from that, and we should be able to run a setup we're more confident running at Norwalk.

"We came extremely close to winning Sunday and that just makes us want to win more. There are only a couple ways to win and a million ways to lose."

Coverage of Sunday’s final eliminations starts at 6 p.m. ET on FS1.