Tony Stewart Wasn’t the Top Pick to Replace Leah Pruett in NHRA Top Fuel Seat

• Lyle Barnett and Leah Pruett have been friends for years, since they had a mutual sponsor.

• Tony Stewart had said many times he was happy remaining in the sportsman ranks in the Top Alcohol Dragster class but changed his mind around Thanksgiving.

• Though disappointed, Barnett said he isn’t angry about the change of plans and will continue to race in the Pro Mod category.

They sat there at the dinner table, Tony Stewart and Top Fuel driver wife Leah Pruett.

And it had been settled—when Pruett took her hiatus to try to start a family at the close of the 2023 NHRA season, Pro Modified and former radial tire racer Lyle Barnett was going to step in as her replacement.

Then Stewart, who has raced nearly every kind of race car except the quickest-accelerating machine on the planet, volunteered that he was ready to take on the 11,000-horsepower nitro-burning dragster.

“I did not push Tony into this position at all,” Pruett said. “But mid-season, when the conversation came up again, I had plans with another candidate. I was trying to develop a testing schedule for this individual (Barnett) and then Tony rose his hand. We were at the dinner table, actually, and he goes, ‘What about me?’ And I go, ‘Dude, last time we talked, you had no interest in replacing me just a few days ago.’ And so I go, ‘If you are truly interested, well then yeah, speak up now or forever hold your peace.”

Barnett had been burned severely in a racing accident in 2015, and afterward he became acquainted with the Fire-Ade company, which manufactures environmentally formulated firefighting foam. Fire-Ade also was one of Pruett’s marketing partners.