When a Top Fuel driver rides with a professional drift racer!

Our very own Leah Pritchett straps herself into an 11,000 horsepower lawn dart as her day job. When you routinely top 320 MPH while covering the 1,000 foot drag strip in less than 4 seconds, there probably isn’t much that will really get your heart pumping.

Gumout and legendary drifter Vaughn Gittin Jr found something that does!

One thing about Leah’s top fuel dragster, for all its insane straight line acceleration, is that it doesn’t do much in the way of turning. In fact, on a perfect run, her DSR-built dragster would deviate only a few inches from the center of the groove on the track.

So, to get her adrenaline pumping, Gumout and VG Jr decided to throw her a massive curve ball, literally and figuratively, by strapping her into a car that is built for turning, but not in the traditional manner. Instead, with Gittin at the controls, the Monster Energy Mustang, which is also sponsored by Gumout, lives and dies by how close it is to out of control. Drifters get points for kicking the rear end out as far as possible and for driving as close to the other guy on the course with them. Both of these are foreign concepts in Pritchett’s world, although you can tell by watching that her car is often on the verge of out of control as well.

As Vaughn points out, her races are usually over in just a few seconds, so a lap around the drift course will likely seem like an eternity to Leah. However, Gittin’s mastery of the steering and throttle control prove effective in getting Pritchett’s heart pumping.

This was shot a few years ago, but I’ve heard Leah mention that she’d still like to try her hand at drifting, so maybe there’s still potential for her to climb back into a car like this and show the world what she can do when it comes to slinging the rear end out and sliding gracefully through the turns!