Defending event champion Pruett hoping to repeat in Charlotte

CHARLOTTE (Sept. 10) – For the first time in her career driving in the NHRA Pro Mod Series presented by ProCare Rx, driver Leah Pruett heads to a race as the defending event champion.

“I am pumped to go back to Charlotte,” Pruett said. “Absolutely pumped to get there.”

At last year’s O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals at zMax Dragway, Pruett was behind the wheel of the ProCare Rx turbo Ford Mustang for the very first time after spending much of the season in a supercharged car. The pairing worked as she won the first Pro Mod Wally of her career.

This weekend Pruett said she’s hoping that familiarity with the track will bring another trophy her way this weekend.

“We’ve won there before and we’ve got a lot of data,” said Pruett, who will be driving the same racecar she put into the winner’s circle one year ago. “It’s exciting to be the defending champion of the race. That makes a big difference.

“I’ll walk into Charlotte feeling good from the very beginning, and we really are looking forward to repeating history.”

Pruett is also looking to crack the top five in points with just Charlotte, St. Louis and Las Vegas left on the Pro Mod schedule. She currently is sixth and trails fifth-place Danny Rowe by 40 points.

R2B2 Racing as a whole is riding an emotional high after team tuner Brad Brand got behind the wheel of the turbo ProCare Rx Chevy Corvette usually driven by team owner Roger Burgess and won last weekend’s Mac Tools U.S. Nationals. Burgess is expected to be back in the car this weekend.

“We started a real good end-of-the-season run at Indy last year,” Brand said. “Maybe it will happen again this year. We have come so close at various points this year to only get slapped down before we reached our goal. Breaking through at Indy is going to be a huge boost to everyone on the team.”

NHRA Pro Mod Series presented by ProCare Rx qualifying at the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals gets under way at 2 and 5 p.m. EDT Friday from zMax Dragway. Qualifying continues on Saturday starting at 2 p.m. with eliminations starting at 4:30 p.m. the same day. Eliminations will conclude on Sunday.

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