{"id":73174,"date":"2023-09-18T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=73174"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:19:25","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:19:25","slug":"tsr-dodge-srt-racers-pruett-hagan-miss-by-inches-at-rain-delayed-pep-boys-nhra-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/racing\/2023\/09\/tsr-dodge-srt-racers-pruett-hagan-miss-by-inches-at-rain-delayed-pep-boys-nhra-nationals.html","title":{"rendered":"TSR Dodge\/\/SRT®<\/sup> Racers Pruett, Hagan Miss by Inches at Rain-Delayed Pep Boys NHRA Nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The adage,\n\u2018It\u2019s a game of inches,\u201d couldn\u2019t have been more appropriate for Dodge\/\/SRT\u00ae<\/sup>\nracers Leah Pruett and Matt Hagan Sunday in the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals at\nMaple Grove Raceway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tony\nStewart Racing pair turned in impressive elapsed times in eliminations in the\nTop Fuel and Funny Car divisions, but both Pruett and Hagan were nipped at the\nfinish line after strong runs in the rain-delayed first \u201cCountdown to the\nChampionship\u201d event in the NHRA Camping World drag racing series. The finals\nwere concluded on Monday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Despite\nrecording her quickest run of the 2023 NHRA national series at 3.677 seconds in\nthe TSR Mobil 1\/Dodge\/\/SRT dragster, Pruett lost by inches to Doug Kalitta in\nthe Top Fuel semi-finals. Pruett remains in the top-five in the current NHRA\nTop Fuel points standings with the tour traveling to the NHRA Carolina\nNationals this weekend (Sept. 22-24).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis Reading race gave\nus great racing conditions,\u201d said Pruett. \u201cCrew chiefs Neal Strausbaugh and\nMike Domagala capitalized on every run we made to narrow in on balancing our\ncar\u2019s power and clutch application threshold. In our first-round win against Clay\n(Millican), it was a pedal-fest after tire shake, so the win was a welcomed\nbreak. In the second round, we ran a 3.74 with a (spark) plug shot out, but\nstill grabbed the win. Our \u2018hot rod\u2019 came to life in the semifinals running a\nstout 3.67. We made so much progress tune-up wise. Even though we didn\u2019t\nadvance to the final round, that semifinal round validated what we need and\nwill be implementing the rest of this Countdown. I haven\u2019t been this excited\nfor my team\u2019s momentum. This is the most significant amount of progress we\u2019ve\never made, and I can\u2019t wait for it to show again in Charlotte.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It was an\neven closer defeat for the three-time NHRA Funny Car World Champion Hagan, who\nset low ET in the first round Sunday with a 3.871 in defeating J.R. Todd with\nhis TSR Rinnai Dodge\/\/SRT Hellcat. Hagan lost in the second round to Robert\nHight in the closest NHRA national event matchup of the 2023 season, falling\njust short by an incredible 0.0001 seconds, or less than 2 inches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hagan left\nthe starting line first with a strong 0.052 reaction time but his 3.859 was\njust edged out with Hight\u2019s 3.852. Despite the second-round loss, Hagan stays\nin the top-four in the current NHRA Funny Car points standing with five races\nremaining. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hagan was pleased with\nthe Dodge\/\/SRT Hellcat\u2019s performance at Maple Grove and feels confident heading\nto the NHRA Carolina Nationals this weekend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWith it being the start\nof the Countdown this weekend, we would have liked to have gone more rounds,\u201d\nsaid Hagan. \u201cAt least we went a couple of rounds, and we made a lot of strides\nin the horsepower department. Dickie (Venables \u2013 crew chief) is doing a great\njob making some changes and our miles per hour were up. We ran a 336 and a 335,\nwhich shows how much horsepower we have. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll in all, I think it\nwas a productive weekend. We were just on the backside of a good drag race. To\nlose by .0001 is just splitting frog hairs out there. We just weren\u2019t on the\nright side of it. I enjoy running Robert (Hight) and that team always makes us\nbring our best on the starting line too. You want Robert, you want J.R. (Todd),\nand you want (Ron) Capps. You want all of the guys that are heavy hitters out\nhere. At the end of the day, I\u2019m proud of my guys, and they did a phenomenal\njob on the race car. We aren\u2019t leaving here the way we wanted to, but we just\nhave to keep digging and working hard for Charlotte now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Team owner Tony Stewart\ncaptured his second NHRA national event this year by winning the Top Alcohol\nDragster title Monday in the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NHRA\nCarolina Nationals features one nitro qualifying session on Friday, Sept. 22,\nat 7 p.m. EDT followed by two qualifying rounds on Saturday, Sept. 23, at 2\np.m. and 5 p.m. EDT. The final eliminations will begin Sunday, Sept. 24, at 11\na.m. EDT.\n\nFox Sports 1 will televise\nwith qualifying round 1 on Saturday, Sept. 23, at 9:30 a.m. EDT and qualifying\nround 2 on Sunday, Sept. 24, at 11 a.m. EDT.  The final eliminations for\nthe NHRA Carolina Nationals will be televised on Fox Sports 1 on Sunday, Sept.\n24, at 2 p.m. EDT.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The adage, \u2018It\u2019s a game of inches,\u201d couldn\u2019t have been more appropriate for Dodge\/\/SRT\u00ae racers Leah Pruett and Matt Hagan Sunday in the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway. The Tony Stewart Racing pair turned in impressive elapsed times in eliminations in the Top Fuel and Funny Car divisions, but both Pruett and Hagan were nipped at the finish line after strong runs in the rain-delayed first \u201cCountdown to the Championship\u201d event in the NHRA Camping World drag racing series. The finals were concluded on Monday morning. Despite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":73176,"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-73174","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\/09\/MapleGroveRecap_Feature.jpg","social_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/MapleGroveRecap_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\/73174"}],"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=73174"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73185,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73174\/revisions\/73185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}