Just two race days remain in the National Hot Rod Association\n(NHRA) \u201cCountdown to the Championship\u201d and Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) driver\nMatt Hagan showed he is determined to stay in the heat of the battle for the\nFunny Car crown by qualifying his Dodge Power Brokers charger SRT Hellcat No. 2\nfor the 22nd annual Nevada Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway,\nthe penultimate event of the six-race playoff series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The three-time world champion sits third in the Funny Car\nstandings going into Sunday\u2019s elimination rounds after finishing runner-up to\nRon Capps (second in points) at the previous race in Texas to put himself\nwithin 78 markers of the category leader Robert HIght heading into the\nweekend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following a pair of qualifying passes on Friday, the Dodge Power\nBrokers Funny Car was provisionally fifth after setting the third-best run of\nthe first session with a 3.898-second lap at 333.25 mph to earn a bonus point.\nBut Hagan, who has three wins (2017, 2019 and 2020) in the last five fall\neditions of the Las Vegas event, pressed even harder on Saturday to record a\nstrong 3.862 sec.\/330.23 mph final qualifying run and earn three\nadditional bonus points for the quickest pass of Q4. More importantly, that\nalso put his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat in the No. 2 spot on the eliminations\nladder behind Hight who leads Hagan by 83 points heading into race day. Hagan’s\nopening round opponent will be No. 15 seed Steven Densham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
TSR Top Fuel pilot Leah Pruett and her Dodge Power Brokers\ndragster were provisionally ninth after two Friday qualifying laps with a best\nrun of 3.746 sec.\/329.18 mph, then improved their performance in the third\nsession with a strong 3.716 second pass at 331.69 mph in a competitive field. That\nrun put Pruett 11th on the eliminations ladder and paired her with No. 6 seed\nMike Salinas for Sunday\u2019s first round. Pruett is focused on going rounds on\nSunday to help her break back into the Top Fuel top-ten as the team\u2019s first\nseason nears an end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year\u2019s Nevada Nationals Funny Car event winner Cruz Pedregon\ncomes into the weekend ninth in points and while his team may not be in the\nchampionship hunt the way they were last season coming into Las Vegas, the team\ncontinues to make performance gains with the Snap-on Tools Dodge Charger SRT\nHellcat and is ready to play spoiler. Pedregon qualified 13th with the 3.945\nsec.\/ 318.77 mph pass he made on his first qualifying pass and will battle No.\n4 seed J.R. Todd in the first round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two shows with qualifying highlights from the NHRA Nevada\nNationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway will air on FS1 on Sunday,\nOct. 30, at 9:30 a.m. ET (Q1 and Q2) and 12:30 p.m. ET(Q3 and Q4). Race day\ncoverage on FS1 will begin at 5 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just two race days remain in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) \u201cCountdown to the Championship\u201d and Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) driver Matt Hagan showed he is determined to stay in the heat of the battle for the Funny Car crown by qualifying his Dodge Power Brokers charger SRT Hellcat No. 2 for the 22nd annual Nevada Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the penultimate event of the six-race playoff series. The three-time world champion sits third in the Funny Car standings going into Sunday\u2019s elimination rounds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":66175,"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-66173","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\/HaganVegas_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\/66173"}],"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=66173"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66177,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66173\/revisions\/66177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}