Josh Hart Leaves Reading with Five Races Left to Chase Championship

READING, PA – In his first full season as a Top Fuel driver and team owner Josh Hart and the R+L Carriers Top Fuel team are in the thick of one of the toughest battles for the Camping World Drag Racing Series world championship. Hart, who last year won twice and raced to a handful of semifinal finishes in just thirteen races, competing on a partial schedule tackled all sixteen regular season national events of 2022. Today he competed in his first playoff national event with the R+L Carriers Top Fuel dragster at the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals.

The driver from Ocala, Florida, qualified No. 9 after two days that included three runs which highlighted steady improvement from the former Top Alcohol Dragster national event winner. Hart’s final two passes of qualifying were strong 3.742 second and 3.733 second passes. His final qualifying pass was the third quickest of the session and earned him a valuable qualifying bonus point.

“We made some good runs to close out qualifying,” said Hart. “We knew we would have a tough first round. This is what the playoffs are all about. There are no easy opponents.”

Traditionally, Hart prefers to be one of the first Top Fuel dragsters in the first round to take advantage of ideal track conditions. Today Hart and his opponent Antron Brown were the final pair of the first round which started over 15 minutes late following an opening ceremony’s fireworks delay. While the delay did not affect track conditions thanks to the superior work from the NHRA Safety Safari, Hart and Brown wrapped up a wild session that saw multiple winners who had to pedal their race cars to victory.

When the R+L Carriers team pulled up Hart hit the throttle and his 11,000-horsepower race car launched off the starting line and immediately overpowered the right lane, smoking the tires. Brown was pulling away in the left lane when his race car lost power, but Hart was in no position to chase down his opponent.

“That was a tough way to go out in the first round,” said Hart. “It is a pretty helpless feeling to see your opponent pull away from you like that. No one over here is going to hang their heads. We are going to put this race behind us. You can have one slip up and still stay in contention for the championship. Today was our slip up and we know what we need to do to win this championship. I am ready to get to North Carolina. We won that race last year and I want to win it again next weekend.”

The Countdown contending driver will head to the Carolina Nationals, a race he won last year, sitting seventh in points. With five races left in the season Hart is less than 100 points out of the lead. The R+L Carriers team controls their destiny as the playoffs move to Charlotte, North Carolina.

Qualifying Results

Q1: 6.278 sec, 107.00 mph; Qual. 12

Q2: 3.742 sec, 330.63 mph; Qual. 9

Q3: 3.733 sec, 330.47 mph; Qual. 9

Bonus Points: +1 (3rd quickest of Q3)

Race Results

First Round

Antron Brown, Brownsburg, Ind., Matco dragster, 3.851, 249.76 mph def. Josh Hart, Ocala, Fla., R+L Carriers dragster, 10.983, 73.85 mph

photo by Gary Nastase/Auto Imagery