Story By: ELON WERNER / JOSH HART RACING – OCALA, FL – Last season at the penultimate NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series national event of the season Josh Hart and the R+L Carriers team made an impact on the Top Fuel championship racing to the semifinals.
This season the fourth year Top Fuel team owner and driver from Ocala, Florida, is looking to continue to have a say in how the NHRA season wraps up for his team as well as the other Countdown contending drivers.
The Ford Performance NHRA Nationals will get underway October 31-November 3, at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Hart is looking to close out a tough season with success in the desert.
“To say this season didn’t go our way is an understatement but we have two more races left on the schedule,” said Hart, a two-time Top Fuel national event winner. “We are not just going through the motions to finish the season. There are two races left and our goal is to win both and maybe have say again in who wins the Top Fuel championship.”
In 2023 Hart was the No. 12 qualifier and upset championship contending driver Leah Pruett from Tony Stewart Racing in the first round with a hole shot win. In the second round he did the same thing to the eventual world champion Doug Kalitta. The championship fell Kalitta’s way by less than a round of racing two weeks later in Pomona. In the semifinals he was first off the line against the eventual Ford Performance Nationals winner Mike Salinas, but Salinas had the quicker race car.
“Last year I felt like we put our team in the championship conversation by how we raced in Las Vegas,” said Hart. “We showed that there was no quit in this R+L Carriers Top Fuel team and this year will be the same thing. We aren’t where we want to be in the points, but we still have a great team, and I want to win races.”
Hart is in a battle for the Top Ten with rookie Tony Stewart, veteran Billy Torrence and Shawn Reed. Heading into Las Vegas the R+L Carriers team is just 62 points out of the ninth spot. That is only three round wins in Las Vegas and just over two rounds when the teams get to Pomona and drivers earn 30 points per round. Hart finished eleventh during his 2021 rookie season when he only raced half of the national events. His best points finish was 2022 when he ended the season in seventh place.
“We are definitely a stronger team than our point position reflects,” said Hart. “We are going to see how we can improve over these last two races starting this weekend in Las Vegas.”
Hart and the R+L Carriers Top Fuel team will have two qualifying runs on Friday and two more on Saturday to position themselves for success on Sunday. They will need to be one of the quickest 16 Top Fuel teams from a solid field of 19 Top Fuel teams. Final eliminations will begin on Sunday, November 3 at 11 a.m. PST.