Leah Pritchett unveiled Dote Racing's "Gumout Solid Gold" Dragster at Bristol Dragway last weekend. But what's solid gold, as well, is the team's progress this season.

"For people who have followed us, you can definitely see progression, and it’s not accidental," the Top Fuel racer told Competition Plus.

"It's really just a product of our strategy coming together, finally," she said.

And Pritchett will be proving herself once again at the July 2-5 Summit Racing Equipment Nationals at Norwalk, Ohio.

So far in 10 outings this season, she has a career-best five round-wins, her first runner-up finish at Atlanta, and a much-improved qualifying slate that includes no DNQs. She has started as high on the grid as third (at Atlanta) and from the upper half of the ladder at four straight races and five times in six consecutive appearances from Gainesville through Englishtown.

Although she has yet to crack the top 10 – something she needs to do by the end of the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis Labor Day weekend if she is to have a shot at a championship – she has shown she can beat some of the class' best in side-by-side action: Brittany Force, JR Todd, Larry Dixon, and wily veteran Chris Karamesines.

"It's no secret that we're a little-bit-underfunded team. So we're lacking on some of the data," Pritchett said. However that's not stopping team owner Mike Dote from encouraging crew chiefs Doug Kuch and Rob Flynn to turn up the wick a little more and Pritchett to be more aggressive behind the wheel, as well.

"Being consistent and being a mid-packer is really awesome. However, that doesn’t make well for line-ups on Sunday," Pritchett said, wanting lane choice on race-day morning. "Qualifying 8, 9, 12 . . . you’re dead-on to get a really difficult person. Now, no matter where you are, they're all really difficult. It depends on what kind of a weekend somebody's having.

"For us, since we are very comfortable with our tune-up in regards to not hurting parts as much, we feel like it’s a pretty safe tune-up. We're just pushing it a little bit harder now," she said. "We've been given direction from our team owner, Mike Dote, who's a great leader, that 'All right – we went from not qualifying to very well to qualifying and getting in the show decently. He keeps pushing us in a positive way: 'OK, give me a couple of 1s and 2s and 3s and 4s and 5s and 6s.' "

Pritchett said she's gung-ho to see how much more she can squeeze from the Dote/Gumout Dragster, although she did remind everyone that a more aggressive approach might achieve more but also might mean they'll go too far once in awhile.

"We're going to push it harder. That means results are going to be great, but the other half of the time we're going to smoke the tires. We're pushing our limits. The window of opportunity to get it right just becomes smaller and smaller and smaller," Pritchett said. "I'm fine with that. Let's push it. Let's run the numbers, because that's what it takes to be able to get down there and be competitive."

That, she said, is what Kuch and Flynn "have been working on for the last couple of months, finally getting our tune-up squared away from just dead-consistent, mid-pack consistent. We're going to be able to push that envelope a little bit farther."

Mike and Connie Dote understand the risks – what Pritchett called "a fine line between getting the power to the ground and smoking the tires," like she saw at Bristol. And he's happy the team is fearless in that respect, pleased that they’re trying and that their plan might not work every time.

"There are team owners out here who want certain things, and Mike does this to be competitive."

Flynn joined the team last September, just in time for the U.S. Nationals, so "we're about three-quarters of the way into a full year of Rob Flynn and Doug Kuch working together now," Pritchett said.

"That has been one of the most perfect pairs. They’re a wonderful match. They have a ton of respect for each other. They do think alike but not too much to the point where it’s groupthink," she said. "They see something different [than the other does]. So I think it's going to be a huge asset to the team."

At first Flynn – who has tuned drivers to victory in the Top Fuel, Funny Car, Top Alcohol Dragster, and Top Alcohol Funny Car classes – came into the mix as an extra set of eyes and hands. Then the crew began to implement his suggestions.

"At first he came on and it was like, 'I'm just going to help the show.' Then it was like, 'All right, we're going to change a couple of things around.' Then they created the tune-up. Now we're pushing this tune-up envelope," Pritchett said.

And if that a neat thing for NHRA fans to watch, it’s just as exciting for the driver.

"It's fun for me to see," Pritchett said. "And I've got to say, I'm pretty involved in the direction of the team . . . knowing what's going on and hearing them talk back and forth, being able to hear our team owner's concerns.  . . .  It's very much more than I show up with my helmet bag on race day."

With the crew one member short at Epping, N.H., because of illness, Pritchett helped Flynn drive the tow vehicle from Englishtown up the coast to New England Dragway, helped set up the pit area, handled the fuel, and washed parts to, in her words, "make it all kind of work."

It certainly is "all kind of working" for the Dote team right now. And Pritchett indicated this is an excellent time for that to be the case.

"Norwalk is a huge one for us. This stretch is kind of our prime time. We've struggled in Norwalk and we feel like we have a lot to prove," she said, alluding to missing the cut there the past two years. "We know how to be fast, and now we have to learn more on being consistent. That's one of the big keys, getting that consistency. A lot of cars are going to be there, and we have to go out there and do what we know how to do."

Pritchett readily admits that she couldn’t butt into Kuch's and Flynn's business if she wanted to but said she does understand what they're doing and immerses herself in the computer data that relates directly to her driving performance.

"I do understand the components they're talking about," she said. "And I understand timing maps and graphs. Now, if I were to look at a screen all by myself and say, 'Let me change the tune-up,' I would have no idea whatsoever. I knew a couple of years ago that was the department I would not be able to conquer. I put my focus on driving the car and marketing and the business side of things . . . and that's plenty enough.

"My ego's not big enough to be like [slipping comically into the voice of a bombastic braggart] 'I want to tune this car AND race this car!' The people out there who do that, it’s because they’re talented enough to do it. Me, I didn't start getting into understanding how each part of the car works until I put myself out there and asked questions – and listened intensely," Pritchett said.

But she laughed at the notion she could orchestrate a tune-up or even a tune-up tweak.

"So far, I would be light years from that. I definitely don’t want anybody to think I can tune a race car," Pritchett said. "But it is nice to be able to understand that language. Rob and Doug will be patient with me. I'll ask about this, this, this, and this, and they'll go, 'Well, this is how this works . . .'  They'll explain it to me, because they want me to know. Like anything, the more a driver understands how the car works, from a mechanical aspect to what just came on the screen and what's going on, is going to make me a better driver."

She said she goes to the crew chiefs' computers and peruses the data that helps her analyze her driving habits.

"I'll go up there when the crew chiefs aren’t there at all and pull up a couple of different line graphs that matter to me – like my throttle position, my brake pressure sensor, where I lift on the track, how I pedal the car. I can look at all those things like an expert. But anything past those 10 lines is way beyond me."

For example, she likes to test her own skill at assessing what just happened in a run.

"I like to be done with the run. I'm turning off. I'll go in my mind: 'All right. We smoked the tires. I think that was right at about 200 feet.' I come back and look on the graph and see how much I was off. Was it 230? Was it 300? Was it 189?" she said, explaining how she quizzes herself.

And how does she fare with her estimates?

"Well!" Pritchett said proudly. "Instead of coming back and looking at the graph and going [mock-braggingly], 'Yeah-yeah. I thought it was 200 feet,' . . .  Well, no, no – that's cheating. I'd be only cheating me. It's definitely the hard way to learn."

But she was quick to say, "There's no shame in my game."

The team also installed an in-car camera. She will look at the footage from that with Kuch and Flynn.

"If there's ever an issue or a question about my driving, we'll look at that together. We all work together very well in getting this car to go down the track," Pritchett said. "If someone makes a mistake, which rarely happens, knock on wood, my guys are really good. It's like 'How can we fix that? How can we get better?' It's not like, 'Aw, man – that guy did this –raahraahraahraahraah.' It's not like that here."

They're united, she said, in their mission to cooperate if a glitch pops up "so you can fix it and not spend money on things you don’t need to spend money on."

Pritchett is popular in the pits and shares thoughts now an again with other Top Fuel racers.

"The first time I got in a dragster, I spoke with Shawn Langdon quite a bit," she said of her former Jr. Dragster colleague. "He has taught me some things that I still use today. And Richie [Crampton], who started after me, he was going through some hurdles – after you red-light at a race, you’re scared and on-edge again, from a reaction-time standpoint. So [we talked about] how to overcome that.

"I've opened conversations with friends – I guess you consider them friends – I want to see them be better, and they want me to do better," she said. "But am I going to have conversations about driving tips and tricks with them? Absolutely not."

In that case, silence also is golden.