’26 NHRA Season Won’t Start Until March but the Smack Talk Has Already Begun

Never one to shy away from sharing an opinion, multi-car NHRA team owner Richard Freeman stuck up for his new Top Fuel driver.

With NHRA announcer and WFO Radio host Joe Castello egging him on during a Race Industry Week presentation that featured the two along with the husband-wife duo of Tony Stewart and Leah Pruett, Elite Motorsports boss Freeman started a little smack-talking. Freeman owns the dragster that Stewart will be driving in 2026. Stewart owns the dragster Pruett will be driving. Stewart gave up that seat to his wife when she announced she will return from maternity leave.

“I want you to have a little fun with me and these two here,” Castello Told Freeman. “So they’re going to race, Richard, what do you think? Who’s going to win? Tony versus Leah. The first time they come up side by side. It could be in qualifying, it doesn’t matter. It’s going to be fun. But the first time in eliminations, what do you think we’re going to see?”

Freeman replied, “I think you’re going to see an ass-whuppin’. That’s what I’ve told Tony last night, and he’s going to have to be OK with sleeping on the couch. She is going to take an ass-whuppin’. That's what’s going to happen.

“We have a lot of fun with that,” he said. “I said, he’s getting ready, by God. An ass-whuppin’s coming. So it’s going to be fun.”

Pruett, laughing and shaking her head, dismissed the prediction.

“Oh, it’s fun. He can dream. It’s fine. You know what I mean? He’s got big ideas, and some of ’em work, some don’t,” she said.

“It is going to be extremely fun and especially because our teams are working together,” Pruett said. “And it’s important to note that they’re not identical operations. The way that Mike Green [crew chief for Stewart] is building with what was Josh Hart’s parts and pieces is dedicated towards that route for now. And I want to point out that Neil Strausbaugh, my original crew chief, Tony’s crew chief for the last two years, the one that brought me to the heels of a championship last round, final race [of the 2023 season], and putting Tony in the regular-season championship [stays at Tony Stewart Racing]. I want everybody to remember that. That’s still my guy. [Co-crew chief] Mike Domagala is still my guy.”

While Pruett can give as good as she gets in he teasing department, she did compliment her husband—and future opponent on occasion—for his strong driving skills in a 12,000-horsepower Top Fuel car.

“For the last two years I’ve been on the sidelines, and I’ve been so impressed with Tony’s driving. There have been some other drivers that have tried to rattle him and they’ve quickly found out that you can’t,” she said. “I’ve been in his corner, and I’m excited about the things I’ve learned from watching him drive and his emotional stability that I get to try that out when we’re testing. So we’re going to have smack talking jars, and there’s going to be bets here and there throughout the week, weekends, crew guys, I mean all across the entire season.

“We know at the end of the day that we’re a married couple, this is what we do, and this is what we love. And the fact that we get to do it with and against each other is something super-unique. And it is a real great driving force of me getting back in the car, kicking his ass,” Pruett said.

She had told Stewart that every driver wants to be able to brag that he or she has beaten Tony Stewart. “I only get to say that when we’re hiking Table Top,” Pruett said.

The two Arizona residents hiked in the Table Top Wilderness near Phoenix, and Stewart said, “I had PTSD from a couple days ago when we hiked. For an old guy like me that’s fat, it’s a hike. It’s tough. She said that the guys can’t rattle me, and they really don’t. Nobody’s been able to rattle me on the starting line. I got rattled the other day because I was following her up the mountain and I look at her ankles and she’s got ankle weights on and she’s just steadily walking away from me. I’m breathing like I am out of oxygen, and she’s just cruising right up there. So that’s the only time I’ve been rattled is watching her do that.”