PHOENIX -- The start of the 2016 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series has been anything but predictable.
At Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park, in the CARQUEST NHRA Nationals, none of the seven cars from the powerhouse Don Schumacher Racing stable advanced to the semifinal round in Top Fuel or Funny Car, something that hadn't happened since 2007.
That opened the door for the first all-female Top Fuel final in 34 years, and it was guaranteed to produce a first-time winner, as Leah Pritchett squared off against Brittany Force.
The drivers put on an outstanding drag race, with Pritchett prevailing on a holeshot (.046 reaction time vs. .067), her 3.775-second/323.12 mph pass getting her to the line ahead despite Force's fractionally quicker 3.774 at 321.35.
"I'm just glad we were able to wrap it up in a very stellar, fashionable female-like way," said Pritchett, who joined Bob Vandergriff Racing this year. "I really could not have dreamed of a more epic final.
"As a driver, you want to win on a holeshot. That's huge, and to give us momentum into this season, every single thing about this is absolutely perfect in my eyes."
Pritchett, 28, has been involved in drag racing for 19 years. But this is her first full-time opportunity in the Top Fuel category.
"I feel like I'm on the top of a mountain," she said. "But I said it before: When you're a climber, you get on top of a mountain, you see the next one and it's higher.
"I'm a climber and I'm always going to be looking for what's next."
John Force's decision to hire famed tuner Alan Johnson to run his Top Fuel team is already paying dividends. Brittany posted four solid passes in the 3.7 and 3.8-second bracket on Sunday, and narrowly missed out on her first TF victory.
"It feels good when you consider this is our second race into the season and we are already in a final," Brittany Force said. "That is pretty outstanding, especially with all the changes we made in the offseason.
"Getting to that final makes us feel really good. We have a long season ahead of us, but I know it will be a good one."
It was only the fourth time in NHRA history that a pair of females earned the right to race in the finals. The only other time it occurred in Top Fuel came in 1982 when Shirley Muldowney defeated Lucille Lee.
Karen Stoffer and Angelle Sampey have twice competed in Pro Stock Motorcycle final-round matchups.
The powerhouse Schumacher team dominated the nitro categories in the season opener at Pomona, with Antron Brown (Top Fuel) and Ron Capps (Funny Car) taking home Wally trophies for the event win.
But in Arizona, early exits by all seven cars allowed the DSR trucks to pack up and beat the traffic from the large crowd on hand.
Shawn Langdon lost a close race to Brittany Force in the first round, Tony Schumacher came up short in a pedalfest with Clay Millican, and Brown made an uncharacteristic mistake and red-lighted in his second-round matchup with Pritchett.
Capps looked as if he carried over some momentum from his Pomona win by landing the No. 1 qualifying slot. But like several other drivers on a hot and sunny day, Capps smoked the tires in the second round against Tim Wilkerson.
Wilkerson went on to race in the finals against John Force, defeating the 16-time Funny Car champion with a 3.937-second pass. Force kept it close for most of the run but a blower failure meant he crossed the line some 45 mph off the pace.
Wilkerson credited his second round win over Capps for helping him adapt to the slippery conditions. He smoked the tires, but was able to recover to make a 4.6-second pass.
"I got a little greedy against Ron and that gave me some parameters that I needed to work on to get past the next two rounds," said Wilkerson, who has a 4-3 advantage over Force in career final rounds. "The track today was a little trickier than on Saturday and I think that helped us get through these rounds."
The revamped Pro Stock class almost also produced an upset winner, as second-year driver Bo Butner took No. 1 qualifier honors for the first time and raced into the semifinals, where he lost to Chris McGaha.
McGaha and Jason Line then put on a tremendous race in the final, Line's 6.666/205.16 just edging McGaha's 6.671/208.75.
It was the second Pro Stock win of the season for KB Racing, Line's triumph at Phoenix coming on the heels of team owner Greg Anderson's victory in the season opener.
