Leah Pritchett talks like a full-time philosopher, a full-time marketer and a full-time drag racer, among other things.
It keeps her life moving at speeds of more than 300 miles per hour, which this year has been as necessary on the track as it is essential off the track.
Pritchett, who is in entering a key weekend of competition at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, started the season with her first full-time ride in the Top Fuel category. But after an early victory, tragedy struck.
Josh Comstock, the owner of C&J Energy Services, died unexpectedly in March. With his death, her main sponsorship was cut off. And with that sponsorship gone, her car owner retired. That has left her in a dizzying search for funding, often week to week, in order to keep competing.
Through all of it, she's missed only one event — and has managed to stay in the top 10 of the series points race. Pritchett has also sharpened an impressive outlook on life — one that manages to embrace whatever lies ahead while also realizing the need to seize one's own destiny.
"Whatever moment we're in right now," Pritchett said, "I'm always expecting it to change."
There have been tenuous moments during the season when doubt crept in — "I don't have the next step. Now is it falling apart?" Pritchett said she wondered — but when you drive a car 325 mph, nothing slows you down for long.
So Pritchett leaned on her love of the sport, which was honed at an early age from a father who was a land-speed racer. And she drew on her experience from previous years, during which she said she had a hand in virtually every aspect of her teams' operations — from sponsors to marketing to, of course, driving.
"I thought one day I wouldn't have to do that," she said. "But I'm looking to the future. It's going to make me one hell of a racer at some point, but I'm going through the mud right now."
And that day might still come for Pritchett, 28, who earned her full-time ride this season by establishing herself as an up-and-coming racer in recent years.
For now, though, she's treating 2016 as a strange blessing — and as a precursor to the advanced business or marketing degree she believes she will obtain someday. She's been on multiple conference calls with Papa John's, a recent sponsor, and Pritchett said listening to marketing and public relations strategy has been almost as thrilling as racing a car.
With a weekend of racing ahead in Brainerd, Pritchett said she still feels like she's in survival mode. But she also believes everything happens for a reason, even if we don't know what that reason is at the time.
"I can say it now because there is light at the end of the tunnel — I'm not sure that I really would have changed this season if I could," she said. "I've grown as a person and a driver."
• The Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals run Thursday-Sunday. Most qualifying rounds are Thursday-Saturday, with elimination events Sunday. Ticket information: brainerdraceway.com.
