Leah Pruett’s return to NHRA victory lane did not take long. Just three months after climbing back into a Top Fuel dragster for the first time in more than two years, she was standing at Bristol Dragway with another trophy in her hands. The moment wasn’t lost on Tony Stewart.

“As her boss, I’m extremely proud, as her husband, I’m even prouder of her,” Stewart wrote after Pruett’s win on June 12. “She’s got a lot to be proud of. Definitely a great day and a great start to the weekend.”

Pruett had stepped back from racing at the end of 2023. She was managing Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune condition that affects thyroid function, and she and Stewart were preparing to start a family. Their son, Dominic, was born in November 2024.

For the next two seasons, Pruett stayed away while Stewart took over her Top Fuel ride. He often joked that he was simply keeping the seat warm until she was ready to come back. That comeback became official at the Gatornationals in March. But it wasn’t easy.

Pruett admitted she had to “try and lie to my body” into treating it like any other race weekend. The challenge was bigger than shaking off rust. She was returning after pregnancy, managing a chronic health condition, and getting reacquainted with a machine that can pull more than five Gs in a single run.

Her first weekend back ended early after traction issues in eliminations. A month later, she was already reaching final rounds in Charlotte. By June, she had a win.

The win came in the postponed New England Nationals final, which was completed at Bristol. Pruett clocked a 3.79-second pass at 332.43 mph to beat Shawn Langdon and collect her 13th career Top Fuel national event win.

What’s easy to miss is that Pruett never really left the team during her two-year break. While Stewart was driving, she remained involved behind the scenes at Tony Stewart Racing, helping with sponsor relationships, marketing efforts, and technical feedback.

Meanwhile, the car was continually competitive. Stewart drove it through the 2024 and 2025 seasons and captured the 2025 NHRA Top Fuel Regular Season Championship.

Tony Stewart Is Still Racing, and The Setup Behind It Is More Interesting Than It Sounds

When Pruett returned, Stewart wasn’t ready to leave the class himself. Instead, he partnered with Elite Motorsports because Tony Stewart Racing didn’t have the budget to field a second full-time Top Fuel operation. The arrangement created one of NHRA’s more unusual storylines: husband and wife competing against each other in the same category.

The partnership became bigger than just finding Stewart a ride. TSR and Elite created a joint venture, TSR Elite, to combine sponsorship, hospitality, and marketing efforts across multiple racing programs. For sponsors, it means a single deal that can cover multiple cars and divisions at once.

There’s also a competitive twist to the arrangement. Stewart’s team and Pruett’s team share technical information, including weather data, tuning notes, and clutch setup details. They can line up against each other on Sunday while working from much of the same information.

Stewart has said the experience has changed the way he thinks about racing. In NASCAR, he believed a driver could account for most of a car’s performance. In Top Fuel, much of that responsibility falls on the crew chiefs and setup decisions before the car ever reaches the starting line.

“The driver is a much smaller piece of the equation,” Stewart has explained in various interviews when discussing the move from stock cars to drag racing.

This does not mean Stewart has slowed down elsewhere. He returned to NASCAR competition earlier this year, driving the No. 25 Ram in the Truck Series opener at Daytona, his first stock-car race since retiring from the Cup Series in 2016.

But this weekend belonged to Pruett. Three months after returning from a two-year absence, she is already back among the fastest drivers in Top Fuel. She entered the Thunder Valley Nationals as the No. 1 qualifier and, more importantly, with a reminder to the rest of the field that she never stopped being a contender.

Stewart may insist he’s just the supportive husband these days. The results at Bristol suggest he’s perfectly happy letting Pruett take center stage.