{"id":72274,"date":"2023-08-14T12:08:07","date_gmt":"2023-08-14T16:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=72274"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:19:27","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:19:27","slug":"matt-hagan-takes-runner-up-finish-at-menards-nhra-nationals-tsr-dodge-srt-hellcat-driver-extends-funny-car-points-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/racing\/2023\/08\/matt-hagan-takes-runner-up-finish-at-menards-nhra-nationals-tsr-dodge-srt-hellcat-driver-extends-funny-car-points-lead.html","title":{"rendered":"Matt Hagan Takes Runner-up Finish at Menards NHRA Nationals; TSR Dodge\/\/SRT®<\/sup> Hellcat Driver Extends Funny Car Points Lead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Matt Hagan\nand his Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) Funny Car team continued their consistent\nperformances in the 2023 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series after scoring a\nrunner-up finish in his TSR American Rebel Dodge\/\/SRT\u00ae<\/sup> Hellcat at the Menards\nNHRA Nationals at Heartland Motorsports Park. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hagan,\nentering his sixth final round of this year\u2019s NHRA campaign, cut an incredible\nstarting light of 0.024 seconds in the final round in the rain-delayed\nHeartland Motorsports Park event and only low elapsed time of the entire race\nby rival Bob Tasca III kept him for his fifth NHRA national event win of the\nseason. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tasca\u2019s\n3.885 bested Hagan\u2019s 3.965 for the Topeka win in the event\u2019s final NHRA\nnational race, as the 2024 NHRA schedule welcomes Flying H Dragstrip in Odessa,\nMo., to replace the Topeka event. The victory margin was just 0.0496 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Led by crew\nchief Dickie Venables and his stellar TSR crew, Hagan drove through the 16-car\nFunny Car field with round wins over Alex Laughlin, Tim Wilkerson and J.R. Todd\nbefore facing Bob Tasca III in the Funny Car final. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the\nrunner-up finish, Hagan extended his NHRA Funny Car points lead to 61 points in\nhis quest for a coveted fourth NHRA World crown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\naddition, the Dodge\/\/SRT Hellcat racer captured his second Mission 2Fast2Tasty\nChallenge event Saturday with a win over Chad Green with a 3.960 to Green\u2019s\n4.039. With his Mission Challenge win, Hagan now has eight points which will be\nadded to his overall total when the \u201cCountdown\u201d begins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was\ngreat to have American Rebel as a new sponsor this weekend,\u201d Hagan said. \u201cI\nhate that we didn\u2019t get it done in the Finals. (Bob) Tasca III really stepped\nup against us and did well. It was a good points weekend for us, being able to\nput a 61-point lead on (Ron) Capps. You have to take away the positives each\nweekend. I can\u2019t wait to get to Brainerd and keep the momentum going. We\u2019ve\nbeen very consistent all year long and I think we\u2019re going to continue that\ntrend the rest of the year. My crew did an amazing job this weekend with the\ntricky track conditions. We had one extreme to another with hot conditions to\ncool air in the Final. Dickie (Venables \u2013 crew chief), Mike (Knudsen \u2013 co-crew\nchief) and Alex (Conaway \u2013 car chief) adapt to changing conditions.\nCongratulations to Tasca. They did a great job and we just got outran out here.\nWe\u2019re hopefully going to chase down this championship and win number\nfour.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Leah\nPruett, Hagan\u2019s TSR teammate, drove the TSR Rayce Rudeen Foundation Dodge\/\/SRT\ndragster to a tough second round loss with a close finish to eventual race\nwinner and current NHRA Top Fuel points leader Justin Ashley with a 3.755 to\nPruett\u2019s 3.794.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the\nsecond-round loss, Pruett continues to hold down a top-five position in the\ncurrent NHRA Camping World Top Fuel points standings with just two events\nremaining before the \u201cChampionship Countdown\u201d starts on Sept. 14-17 in the Pep\nBoys NHRA Nationals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cGoing into\nTopeka, we were fifth in points and we\u2019re leaving fifth in points,\u201d said\nPruett. \u201cIt just shows how strong this entire field is. Most importantly for us\ncoming off of the (Western) Swing, we wanted to regroup and get our performance\npackage together. Qualifying number two was very strong and what we were aiming\nfor. To turn around and run Justin Ashley in round two always brings out the\nbest in me. Our best wasn\u2019t quite enough to get around him, but it all comes\nback to qualifying and where you start and the momentum you have. Momentum is\nnot something magical. It takes a lot of work and persistence. We have a very\nstrong race car and an even stronger team coming out of this weekend.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lucas\nOil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway will have two nitro\nqualifying sessions on Friday, Aug. 18, at 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. CDT followed\nby two qualifying rounds on Saturday, Aug. 19, at 1:30 p.m. and 4:15 p.m. CDT.\nSunday\u2019s final eliminations start at 11 a.m. CDT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lucas\nOil NHRA Nationals will be televised on Fox Sports 1 with qualifying round 1 on\nFriday, Aug. 18, at 8 p.m. EDT and qualifying round 2 on Sunday, Aug. 19, at 1\np.m. EDT. The final eliminations will be shown Sunday, Aug. 20, at 4 p.m. EDT\non FOX Network.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

@DodgeMoparMotorsports<\/a> on Instagram<\/strong>
The @DodgeMoparMotorsports<\/a> Instagram channel continues to share content capturing Dodge\/\/SRT Mopar\u00ae<\/sub> drivers on the track. Fans can see action from the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series and NHRA Sportsman grassroots racers, competing in classes such as Factory Stock Showdown, Stock and Super Stock, as well as additional motorsports series. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matt Hagan and his Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) Funny Car team continued their consistent performances in the 2023 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series after scoring a runner-up finish in his TSR American Rebel Dodge\/\/SRT\u00ae Hellcat at the Menards NHRA Nationals at Heartland Motorsports Park. Hagan, entering his sixth final round of this year\u2019s NHRA campaign, cut an incredible starting light of 0.024 seconds in the final round in the rain-delayed Heartland Motorsports Park event and only low elapsed time of the entire race by rival Bob Tasca III kept […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":72282,"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-72274","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\/2023\/08\/MattHaganTopekaRecap_Feature.jpg","social_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/MattHaganTopekaRecap_Social.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\/72274"}],"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=72274"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72285,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72274\/revisions\/72285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}