{"id":65309,"date":"2022-10-03T07:25:45","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T11:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=65309"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:20:17","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:20:17","slug":"third-consecutive-semifinal-performance-for-hagan-and-dodge-charger-srt-hellcat-in-nhra-countdown-to-the-championship-at-midwest-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/racing\/2022\/10\/third-consecutive-semifinal-performance-for-hagan-and-dodge-charger-srt-hellcat-in-nhra-countdown-to-the-championship-at-midwest-nationals.html","title":{"rendered":"Third Consecutive Semifinal Performance for Hagan and Dodge Charger SRT®<\/sup> Hellcat in NHRA \u2018Countdown to the Championship\u2019 at MidWest Nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was a third consecutive semifinal result for Tony Stewart\nRacing (TSR) driver Matt Hagan and his Dodge Charger SRT\u00ae<\/sup> Hellcat Funny Car in\nthe National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) \u201cCountdown to the Championship\u201d at the\n11th annual NHRA Midwest Nationals at World Wide Technology Raceway, the third\nof six playoff series events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hagan, last year\u2019s Funny Car event winner at the St. Louis area\ndragstrip, collected three bonus points in qualifying by recording the third\nbest time on Friday, and then was second quickest in the final session with a\nbest lap of 3.867 seconds at 335.48 mph to put the Baja Vida Snacks Dodge\nCharger SRT Hellcat fourth on the eliminations ladder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An opening round win over No. 13 seed Jim Campbell set up a\nquarterfinal matchup with No. 5 qualifier Bob Tasca III, against whom Hagan\nearned his 20th round win at the NHRA Midwest Nationals, the most for any Funny\nCar at this event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hagan\u2019s opponent for the important semifinal showdown was Funny\nCar points leader Robert Hight, against whom the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat had\nthe advantage on the tree and maintained the lead to the halfway point, but\nwhile the two had a good side-by-side battle, Hagan (3.945\/330.31) saw his\nopponent (3.913\/327.59) slip past him to reach the stripe first. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hagan\u2019s third consecutive semifinal appearance in the Countdown\nkeeps him third in the hunt for the Funny Car championship crown, within 103\nmarkers of the category leader and event winner Hight, and 57 points behind\nsecond place, Ron Capps, with three events remaining in the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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TSR driver Leah Pruett came into the race weekend sporting the\nSparkling Ice +Caffeine livery on the Dodge\/\/SRT dragster for her 190th career\nTop Fuel start and with a good track record at the Midwest Nationals event\nafter having advanced to the semifinals in three of her last four appearances\n(2018, 2019 and 2021) at the St. Louis area dragstrip. A best qualifying lap of\n3.729 seconds at 329.18 mph put her 11th on the eliminations ladder and paired\nher with No. 6 seed Tony Schumacher for the opening round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The two were nearly even on the launch and while Pruett battled\nnext to Schumacher the length of the track and recorded her best pass of the\nweekend with a 3.716-second\/327.03 mph run, it wasn\u2019t enough to beat her\ncompetitor\u2019s 3.701 sec.\/332.02 mph lap to turn on win lights. While the team\nhas shown steady improvement, it has not been reflected in their playoff\nresults with three consecutive first round exits that have Pruett sitting in\neleventh place in the Top Fuel playoff standings, 179 points behind category\nleader Justin Ashley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Funny Car driver Cruz Pedregon debuted a new \u201cSocket to Breast\nCancer\u201d livery for October on his Snap-on Tools Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat in\nsupport of the Pink Fund\u00ae<\/sup> in the U.S. and the Kelly Shires Foundation in Canada. Pedregon\u2019s\nbest qualifying run of 3.897 seconds at 331.36 mph, the team\u2019s top speed of the\nseason, put his HEMI\u00ae<\/sup>-powered machine in the top half of the eliminations\nladder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The sixth place qualifier had No. 11 seed Dale Creasy Jr. in the\nopposite lane for the opening round and while both battled tire smoke, Pedregon\ncame out on top and advanced to his second quarterfinal elimination of the\nplayoffs to meet up with No. 3 qualifier Capps. The pair had clean passes with\nPedregon battling hard with a solid 3.938 sec.\/322.81 mph effort that\nultimately wasn\u2019t quite enough to match his opponent\u2019s 3.927 sec.\/328.30 mph\nrun. With the result, Pedregon maintains his ninth place standing in the Funny\nCar playoff rankings but sits 245 points behind the top spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a one week break from playoff action, the fourth of six NHRA\n\u201cCountdown to the Championship\u201d events, Texas NHRA FallNationals at Texas\nMotorplex, will take place Oct. 13-16, near Dallas, Texas. FS1 will present qualifying\nhighlights on Sunday, Oct. 16, at 10 a.m. ET with race day coverage beginning\nat 10:30 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a third consecutive semifinal result for Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) driver Matt Hagan and his Dodge Charger SRT\u00ae Hellcat Funny Car in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) \u201cCountdown to the Championship\u201d at the 11th annual NHRA Midwest Nationals at World Wide Technology Raceway, the third of six playoff series events. Hagan, last year\u2019s Funny Car event winner at the St. Louis area dragstrip, collected three bonus points in qualifying by recording the third best time on Friday, and then was second quickest in the final session with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":65313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[575],"tags":[528,615,2992],"class_list":["post-65309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing","tag-drag-racing","tag-nhra","tag-tony-stewart-racing"],"acf":[],"custom_fields":{"post_thumbnail_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/HaganMidwest_Feature.jpg","icon_selection":"article","external_link":"","featured_article":[],"upload_background_image":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65309"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65309"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65324,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65309\/revisions\/65324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}