News

NHRA Midwest Nationals
Event 16 of 20
Countdown Event 3 of 7
World Wide Technology Raceway
Madison, Ill. 
Sept. 24 - 26, 2021

DSR Qualifying Highlights:

• Three-time and defending Funny Car world champion Matt Hagan rocketed to the pole position on Saturday night to earn his third No. 1 qualifier award of the year, and 43rd overall
• Hagan recorded the best E.T. of both Q2 and Q3 in addition to Friday night’s second-seeded Q1 effort, which allowed him to capture eight out of nine available bonus points during the weekend
• Hagan will start race day with a Bye run as he pursues his first World Wide Technology Raceway triumph
• Funny Car point leader Ron Capps will start Sunday’s elimination rounds from the No. 2 position after clocking the second-quickest pass of Q3, besting his top-seeded Q1 E.T. Capps’ impressive performance earned him five qualifying bonus points overall
• Double-duty driver Leah Pruett will start Sunday from the No. 4 position on the Top Fuel ladder after recording the third-quickest E.T. of Q3
• The trio of DSR Dodge Drag Paks earned qualifying positions in the top half of the Factory Stock Showdown field with Mark Pawuk leading the pack in second after resetting his career-best E.T. and speed on Saturday, in addition to resetting the St. Louis FSS track speed record (previously held by Pawuk) 

 
MADISON, Ill. (September 25, 2021) – Three-time and defending Funny Car world champion Matt Hagan will begin his campaign for a first NHRA Midwest Nationals trophy from the pole position on Sunday morning at World Wide Technology Raceway in suburban St. Louis. It is Hagan’s third No. 1 qualifier award of the season, and 43rd overall.
 
Hagan earned the No. 1 spot by driving the New Holland Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye to a stout 3.868 E.T. at 333.25 mph during the third qualifying session to move from the No. 2 qualifying position up to the top of the ladder, surpassing teammate Ron Capps who had previously held the provisional pole through the first two sessions.
 
Saturday’s final qualifying session was reminiscent of Funny Car Q1 with Hagan and Capps closing out the round by lining up in the final pairing. Just like on Friday night, Hagan and Capps unloaded with monster runs, rocketing to the two best passes of the session, and putting on a spectacular show for the fans by clocking side-by-side 333-mph runs with Capps posting a 3.876 E.T.
 
“I’m humbled and blessed to be here driving this amazing New Holland Dodge. Capps and those boys across the way with ‘Guido’ (Dean Antonelli) and John Medlen are throwing down, and so are our guys with Dickie Venables. He and Mike Knudsen and Alex Conaway and this entire New Holland/Mopar team just have this car on a string,” said Hagan, speaking of his team’s stellar performance which includes two wins in the last four races, with Hagan racing to victory in Brainerd, Minn. and stand-in driver Tommy Johnson Jr. winning in Reading, Penn. when Hagan was sidelined due to COVID-19.
 
“Our confidence as a team is so high,” added Hagan. “It makes me feel confident seeing what Dickie is doing and that builds my confidence as a driver. We have a car that can win this championship, without a doubt in my mind. I’ve been fortunate to win three of them and I know what it’s like to be there and when things start clicking and coming together and this team is doing that. It’s pretty darn exciting to be a part of.”
 
Hagan entered the race weekend ranked second in the Countdown to the Championship standings and trailing No. 1 ranked Capps by a scant five points. After posting the quickest pass of both Saturday sessions, and the second-quickest pass on Friday night, Hagan collected eight out of nine available bonus points, helping to narrow the margin between him and his teammate, who amassed five bonus points during qualifying. While Capps holds a one-point lead on Hagan heading into round one of eliminations on Sunday, Hagan knows he is virtually guaranteed to be awarded the 20 round-win points during E1 since his pole position set him up with a first-round Bye. Regardless, he knows that if he wants to continue to be a top title contender, he will have to be able to continue to go toe-to-toe with Capps who is seeking his second series title.
 
“Don Schumacher has put together a great team with Dickie and my group, and Ron and Guido over there. It’s absolutely throw-down each time we run each other, whether in qualifying or on race day. That NAPA team is going to be tough to go through to win a championship. Teammates are even tougher because we’re working with the same resources and data and parts and pieces. You don’t want for anything at DSR. To see (the NAPA team) run as good as they are, we know we have to face them at some point. I’ve seen Dickie coming into qualifying and race day, and we’ve been low E.T. of most rounds, and that gives me a lot of confidence in what the car can do and what we can do on the race track. I know Dickie can throw down when he needs to and hopefully I can do my job as a driver and give us a few hundredths (of-a-second) at the tree.”

Qualified: No. 1 

The Competition: BYE

The Results:
Q1: 3.889 E.T. at 332.75 MPH (Two bonus points for second-quickest run of the session)
Q2: 3.911 E.T. at 329.10 MPH (Three bonus points for quickest run of the session)
Q3: 3.868 E.T. at 333.25 MPH (Three bonus points for quickest run of the session)

Bonus Points: Eight 

 
Qualified: No. 11

The Competition: No. 6 Spencer Massey

The Results: 
Q1: 3.765 E.T. at 323.97 MPH
Q2: 3.770 E.T. at 325.30 MPH
Q3: 3.778 E.T. at 324.67 MPH

Quotable:
“We’re looking forward to a good race day tomorrow. I have all the confidence in this Matco Tools team here at DSR with Toyota and all of our great partners. We have to keep our heads down here at World Wide Technology Raceway. This is maybe the toughest Top Fuel field we’ve seen all year. All the match-ups are monster match-ups. We’d like to get some redemption from last weekend racing Spencer Massey again. It’s like the old days of a Matco/FRAM slugfest from like a decade ago. It’s fun and we’ll give it all we got.” 

 
Qualified: No. 4 (lane choice)

The Competition: No. 13 Clay Millican

The Results: 
Q1: 6.680 E.T. at 104.23 MPH
Q2: 3.768 E.T. at 319.90 MPH
Q3: 3.714 E.T. at 326.00 MPH (One bonus point for third-quickest run of the session)

Bonus Points: One

Quotable:
“This is when the Countdown gets spicy. Coming into this race fifth in points and Clay Millican is always a massive contender. That’s a high-horsepower car that can get you anytime, but one thing I know for sure is that we are ready for race day. Our 3.71 was extremely strong. We worked on that from our Q2 run on Saturday afternoon. We did end up swapping cars after our first qualifier because it was just not acting right and we erred on the side of safety and that’s one of the things I love best about DSR and this team. We had our backup car ready to rip, and hats off to the team for getting the car out of the trailer, onto the track and into the No. 4 position. I’m very much looking forward to race day and this Okuma hot rod is still powered by Dodge//SRT with parts made in Okuma machines and I’m proud of this team and ready for race day.”