{"id":65686,"date":"2022-10-17T06:45:38","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T10:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=65686"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:20:16","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:20:16","slug":"hagan-drives-dodge-power-brokers-charger-srt-hellcat-from-no-1-qualifier-to-first-final-round-appearance-in-nhra-countdown-to-the-championship-at-texas-fallnationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/racing\/2022\/10\/hagan-drives-dodge-power-brokers-charger-srt-hellcat-from-no-1-qualifier-to-first-final-round-appearance-in-nhra-countdown-to-the-championship-at-texas-fallnationals.html","title":{"rendered":"Hagan Drives Dodge Power Brokers Charger SRT®<\/sup> Hellcat from No. 1 Qualifier to First Final Round Appearance in NHRA \u2018Countdown to the Championship\u2019 at Texas FallNationals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) Funny Car driver Matt Hagan qualified\nhis Dodge Power Brokers Charger SRT\u00ae<\/sup> Hellcat No. 1 then drove it to an important\nfirst final round appearance in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA)\n\u201cCountdown to the Championship\u201d at the 37th<\/sup> annual Texas\nFallNationals at Texas Motorplex, the fourth of six playoff series events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hagan earned the top spot on the eliminations ladder and his sixth\ntop qualifier honor of the season with an impressive second pass on Friday\nunder the lights to set the Texas track record with a 3.825-second lap at\n334.85 mph, the second-quickest Funny Car run of the 2022 season. The\nthree-time Funny Car world champion entered the weekend 103 markers behind the\ncategory leader Robert Hight, but added nine valuable bonus points by\nregistering all four of his runs among the top-three quickest of each\nsession. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hagan and his Dodge Power Brokers Charger SRT Hellcat headed into\neliminations having cut the deficit to 98 points and disposed of No. 16 seed\nTerry Haddock and No. 8 Tim Wilkerson to advance to a fourth consecutive\nsemifinal appearance in the Countdown and face-off against No. 4 seed Bob Tasca\nIII.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hagan had the advantage on the launch with a quick 0.015-second\nreaction time over Tasca\u2019s 0.051-second start, and while both ran identical\n3.891-second laps, the Dodge Power Brokers Charger SRT Hellcat recorded a speed\nof 338.02 mph, the tenth fastest run in class history and the fastest in three\nyears, to turn on the win lights with a 0.04-second margin of victory to\nadvance to final round of the FallNationals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For his 78th career final round appearance and the first of this\nyear\u2019s Countdown, Hagan lined up next to No. 3 qualifier Ron Capps and set his\nsights on heading to the winner\u2019s circle for the first time since his win at\nthe New England Nationals in June. Both had a chance to make some solid gains\nand close the points gap with Hight who had a semifinal exit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After three passes at 3.87, 3.88. and 3.89 seconds, the Dodge\nPower Brokers Funny Car launched first and recorded a 3.923 sec.\/331.32 mph run\nin a good side-by-side battle that saw Capps edge him at the line with a 3.911\nsec.\/327.18 mph lap to take the win by one- thousandths of a second and put the\nvictor within ten points of the championship leader. With the runner-up finish,\nHagan remained third in the battle for the Funny Car championship crown, but\nclosed the gap to 78 points between himself and the leader with two playoff\nevents left including the points-and-a-half format finale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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TSR Top Fuel pilot Leah Pruett came into the FallNationals\nrepresenting Rush Truck Centers on her Dodge\/SRT dragster and looking to put\nthree consecutive playoff early round exits in the rear view mirror. Friday\nnight qualifying at the Dallas-area dragstrip provided a bit of drama for\nPruett who had a good run going when her ride turned into a fireball at the end\nof her second pass of the weekend. Despite the setback, she came back strong\nand qualified in the top half of the eliminations ladder with a solid\n3.731-second run at 304.18 mph to put herself eighth and set up a first round\npairing with No. 9 seed Josh Hart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pruett had a stout launch with a 0.047-second reaction time,\nclocked a 3.888-sec.\/229.84 mph first round pass, and was awarded the immediate\nround win when Hart fouled out on the start. That sent Pruett to her first\nquarterfinal appearance of the playoffs where she met up with No. 1 qualifier\nAustin Prock. The Dodge\/\/SRT dragster ran a solid 3.764 sec.\/275.72 mph lap but\nit wasn\u2019t quite enough to beat Prock\u2019s 3.737 sec.\/324.18 mph pass. With the\nresults, Pruett sits 39 points outside of the top-ten in the Top Fuel playoff\nstandings and now looks to focus on solid outings in the final two events of\nthe season to finish her team\u2019s inaugural season on a good note. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sitting ninth in the Funny Car championship standings to start the\nweekend, Cruz Pedregon Racing owner and driver Cruz Pedregon gave his Snap-on\nTools Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat an 11th place starting position for Sunday\u2019s\ncontest with a best qualifying effort of 3.965 seconds at 324.84 mph to set up\na first round match-up with No. 6 seed John Force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Notoriously known for his deep staging tactics, Force had the\nquicker start while Pedregon stayed close with a 3.902 sec.\/327.70 mph pass to\nchallenge his opponent\u2019s winning 3.925 sec.\/331.66 mph lap. Despite the first\nround exit, Pedregon remains optimistic and happy with the gains his team has\nmade throughout the season and looks to finish the season strong and improve on\nhis current ninth place position in the Funny Car championship rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NHRA Nevada Nationals, the penultimate event of the NHRA\n\u201cCountdown to the Championship\u201d is set to take place Oct. 27-30 at The Strip at\nLas Vegas Motor Speedway. FS1\nwill present two qualifying highlights shows on Sunday, Oct. 30, at 9:30 a.m.\nET (Q1) and 12:30 pm (Q2 and Q3) with race day coverage beginning at 5 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) Funny Car driver Matt Hagan qualified his Dodge Power Brokers Charger SRT\u00ae Hellcat No. 1 then drove it to an important first final round appearance in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) \u201cCountdown to the Championship\u201d at the 37th annual Texas FallNationals at Texas Motorplex, the fourth of six playoff series events. Hagan earned the top spot on the eliminations ladder and his sixth top qualifier honor of the season with an impressive second pass on Friday under the lights to set the Texas track record […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":65688,"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-65686","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\/FallNationals_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\/65686"}],"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=65686"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65701,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65686\/revisions\/65701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}