News

First-round frustration for Matt Hagan

April 17

A frustrating weekend here ended today for Matt Hagan in the first round of the 2nd annual VisitMyrtleBeach.com NHRA 4-Wide Nationals when his DieHard Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car lost traction, then blew up.

According to the Don Schumacher Racing driver the four-wide configuration influenced his decision to stay on the throttle rather than shutting off to save the engine.

“I started to smoke the tires, but since I didn’t see any of the other three cars clearly ahead, I stayed on the gas, trying to get the car to the finish and at least a runner-up spot, which would have put the DieHard Dodge into the second round,” he explained. “Obviously, it didn’t work out for us.”

He was off the start before his three opponents, but ran into trouble about a third of the way down the 1,000-foot track. The round ended with a 6.217-second/111.15-mile-per-hour pass, well behind the top two finishes of Tim Wilkerson, 4.422/246.75, and John Smith, 4.475/227.96.

The team had battled issues throughout qualifying, but the Christiansburg, Va., native entered today’s eliminations confident despite his 14th starting position. His best run, 4.155-seconds at 305.91 miles per hour, which had followed an earlier 4.170/296.89mph, failed to move him up as qualifying progressed.

“We had had some problems, but you just have to dig deeper when things aren’t going exactly right,” said the 28-year-old who runs a cattle farm when not driving the 8,000-horsepower Funny Car. “I have such great confidence in my crew chief, Tommy DeLago; I always think we have a chance on race day, no matter what we had done in qualifying.

“Times like this make you really appreciate the good times,” added the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle Funny Car runner up. “You just have to get back out there and move onto the next one.”

Hagan will head to Texas with 241 points and fifth place in the championship hunt as the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series moves to Royal Purple Raceway in Baytown for the April 29-May 124th annual O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Spring Nationals.