{"id":62756,"date":"2022-07-04T09:10:12","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T13:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=62756"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:20:21","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:20:21","slug":"behind-the-scenes-with-tony-stewart-racing-in-norwalk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/racing\/2022\/07\/behind-the-scenes-with-tony-stewart-racing-in-norwalk.html","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Scenes with Tony Stewart Racing in Norwalk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I was 12 years old when I first remember going to the drag strip with my dad. We were at the Mopar\u00ae<\/sub> Nationals in Indianapolis and as we sat down in the grandstands, the first quarter-mile race that I ever saw in person had Bill \u201cMaverick\u201d Golden taking on Bob Riggle\u2019s HEMI\u00ae<\/sup> Under Glass Plymouth Barracuda in a duel of legendary Mopar wheelstanders. We spent the rest of that weekend watching all sorts of Mopar machines storm down the track and at that point, I fell in love with drag racing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A few years later, I began racing my 1983 Dodge Mirada around the country, along with becoming a huge NHRA drag racing fan. We attended a few NHRA events over the years, but it has been at least 20 years since I\u2019ve seen the drag racing big leagues in person. That changed this past weekend, when the folks at Dodge invited me to drive to Summit Motorsports Park for a behind-the-scenes look at the Tony Stewart Racing teams at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals. Working in the automotive media world has afforded me the pleasure of meeting with and interviewing Matt Hagan and Leah Pruett in the past, but I had never gotten to hang out in the pit area of an NHRA Top Fuel team, nor had I ever been in their intricate haulers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Upon arriving at the track in Norwalk, I parked my Dodge\nDurango SRT\u00ae<\/sup> test vehicle and headed to the media room in the tower building\nthat overlooks the track. While spectators sit in the sun in the grandstands,\nlooking around at the people in front of them and fighting off the smoke from\nburnouts, the media watches from an air-conditioned room with tiered seating,\ngiving everyone a great look straight down the track. There is just enough\nsound insulation in the building that the roar of the engines doesn\u2019t deafen\nyou like it does trackside, but you can still enjoy the sound of monster power.\nThere are also video monitors that show the feed of the run, followed by\nreadouts of the track times for every car down the track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Once the rest of the small group of invited media arrived, a member of the Dodge PR team escorted us down to Tony Stewart Racing where we checked into the team hospitality area. The tables and chairs in that massive tent gave us a great view of Hagan\u2019s pits as his team prepared the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat funny car for qualifying. We arrived around 2 p.m. and at that point, the body was off and the engine was torn down with the heads, manifolds and supercharger sitting alongside the car on work benches. We were also able to walk around the hospitality trailer to Leah Pruett\u2019s pit area, where her Top Fuel dragster was similarly torn down in preparation for qualifying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meeting the Drivers<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Although Hagan and Pruett both had busy days packed with appearances and track time, they both made time to sit down and answer questions with the few members of the media on hand. Since I have gotten to interview them both in the past while the other writers present had not, I just had one simple question for each of them. I asked Pruett if there were any unexpected growing pains with the new team and I asked Hagan if there were any strategy changes in moving to a one-car Funny Car team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pruett explained that the will of her team was tested much\nsooner than she had expected. With her role on the new team, she came out\nreally hoping to make a big splash in the class this year, but she struggled at\nthe first two races of the season. However, her team was quick to rally around\nher and she made adjustments to her driving that have led to progressive\nimprovements throughout the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As for Hagan, he explained that while the multi-car team looks nice to fans, it isn\u2019t all that helpful to the individual car teams. He pointed out that each car\u2019s crew chief prefers to keep their tuning details to themselves since, in the end, they all may end up racing each other for the Wally. Because of that, there isn\u2019t a whole lot of cross-team information sharing, so there is little benefit to each car team at events. He is liking the benefits of being the only Funny Car team under Tony Stewart Racing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Touring the Trailer<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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After sitting down with Tony Stewart Racing drivers, we moved onto the incredible experience of touring Matt Hagan\u2019s trailer. Our host for the tour was Hagan\u2019s Car Chief, Alex Conaway, not to be confused with Hagan\u2019s Crew Chief, Dickie Venables. Conaway walked us through the majority of the intricate two-trailer system which creates the mobile command center for Hagan\u2019s team at the track. The \u201ctrailer\u201d is actually two full-sized trailers parked side-by-side, with a hallway connecting the two in the middle. Throughout each trailer are dedicated work areas with a countertop area and various tools or machinery, and between those areas are massive cabinets. Behind the huge cabinet doors are all of the items needed to build just about everything that Matt Hagan could need at the track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n