Story By: ELON WERNER / JOSH HART RACING – NORWALK, OH – Throughout his young professional career NHRA Top Fuel team owner and driver Josh Hart has had the unwavering support of primary sponsor R+L Carriers. This weekend at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals Hart was surrounded by R+L Carriers guests and employees as he experienced one of his toughest races.
The multi-time national event winner made four qualifying runs over two days and when qualifying concluded last night Hart had the seventeenth quickest Top Fuel dragster on the property narrowly missing one of the quickest 16-car fields in NHRA history by .002 of a second. For the first time in his career Hart will be on the sideline during an NHRA national event.
“This was one of the toughest weekends of my racing career,” said Hart. “We are a better team than this. We have responsibilities to our great sponsors R+L Carriers and Burnyzz Speed Shop plus every other company on the side of this dragster. We are going to make some major changes to get better now. We are not out of the championship hunt, but we need to be better on the track.”
The emotion Hart expressed at the top end of Summit Motorsports Park following the final qualifying session showed the fiery spirit that has guided Hart to build multiple successful businesses and have a strong racing resume in both Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Fuel. As a multi-time U.S. Nationals winner in Top Alcohol Dragster Hart made the jump to Top Fuel in 2021 winning his first Top Fuel national event as well as the Charlotte Countdown race in his rookie season. In 2023 Hart opened the season winning the Pep Boys All-Star Callout specialty race pocketing the $80,000 payday. Since that race Hart has upgraded his operation top to bottom and recently unveiled brand-new race trailers to transport his single team operation across the country.
“We have all the assets and equipment to win a Top Fuel championship and I feel like we have really good people on this team,” said Hart. “This sport is humbling and frustrating and you have to pour your heart and soul into every aspect. I think we need to just take a step back and focus on where we can get better. No one is pointing fingers. This is a team and we will get better as a team. I want to thank everyone from R+L Carriers that came out this weekend to support us and I promised everyone of them today that we would continue to represent them to the highest standard and we appreciated their support.”
On Friday Hart and the R+L Carriers Top Fuel dragster made two runs opening qualifying with a 3.967 second pass that had him sitting twelfth out of 19 Top Fuel dragsters. During the Friday night session Hart improved with a 3.827 second pass but the competition was a few ticks quicker and Hart ended the day as the No. 18 provisional qualifier with two more sessions on the schedule. Saturday’s two qualifying sessions were delayed over four hours by a severs rainstorms that blew through the Norwalk area.
During the final two qualifying sessions the R+L Carriers Top Fuel dragster shook and smoked the tires to start the day and in the final session needing to post a quicker elapsed time than 3.801 Hart lit up the scoreboard with an improved 3.803 second pass. It was his quickest run of the weekend but not enough to race into the 16-car field. Hart missed qualifying for the first time in his short career.
“This shows how tough the Top Fuel class can be and we should be running quicker,” said Hart. “There is no reason with our team and our equipment we should ever have our qualifying fate come down to the final qualifying session.”
Hart and the R+L Carriers team will have two weeks to work on preparing for the two race Western Swing of Seattle, Washington and Sonoma, California, before they are back on track for the Northwest Nationals, July 19-21, at Pacific Raceway and the Sonoma Nationals July 26-28.