{"id":73988,"date":"2023-10-30T06:41:14","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T10:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=73988"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:19:23","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:19:23","slug":"tsr-dodge-srt-nhra-funny-car-driver-hagan-advances-to-vegas-semifinals-maintains-points-lead-teammate-pruett-third-in-top-fuel-points-after-close-first-round-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/racing\/2023\/10\/tsr-dodge-srt-nhra-funny-car-driver-hagan-advances-to-vegas-semifinals-maintains-points-lead-teammate-pruett-third-in-top-fuel-points-after-close-first-round-exit.html","title":{"rendered":"TSR Dodge\/\/SRT®<\/sup> NHRA Funny Car Driver Hagan Advances to Vegas Semifinals, Maintains Points Lead; Teammate Pruett Third in Top Fuel Points After Close First-round Exit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Three-time NHRA\nWorld Champion Matt Hagan missed advancing to his third straight Funny Car\nfinal by inches (.009 seconds) in his Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) Direct\nConnection Dodge\/\/SRT\u00ae<\/sup> Hellcat at the NHRA Nevada Nationals on Sunday Despite\nthe semifinals exit, Hagan continues to lead the NHRA Camping World Funny Car\npoints standings entering the final race of the 21-event national tour at the\nNHRA In-N-Out Burger Finals on Nov. 10-12 in Pomona, California. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hagan, seeking his\nthird consecutive NHRA national win, won two rounds of competition in very cold\n50-60 degree temperatures and windy conditions Sunday at The Strip at Las Vegas\nMotor Speedway before losing to Bob Tasca III in the semifinals with a 3.901 to\nTasca\u2019s 3.886. Hagan\u2019s brilliant 0.049 starting line light held the lead over\nTasca for most of the 1,000-foot track before being nipped at the finish line.\nHagan holds a 15-point margin over Tasca in the standings and 17 markers over\nthe third-place Robert Hight .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hagan, who\nqualified third at a 3.871 on Friday with support from his Dickie Venables-led\nTSR crew, entered Sunday\u2019s eliminations with two straight NHRA victories at St.\nLouis and Dallas and had also captured wins at the last two Las Vegas events,\nlast October in the Nevada Nationals and last April in the Four-Wide\nNationals.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hagan\u2019s Sunday\nruns produced very consistent times with a 3.889 over Terry Haddock and 3.892\nover Paul Lee.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe\nstruggled a little bit in qualifying,\u201d said Hagan. \u201cDickie always regroups and\nputs a great race car underneath me on Sunday. We have a good TSR Direct\nConnection Dodge\/\/SRT Hellcat car, but we were just on the backside of a good\ndrag race. At the end of the day, this is a team sport, and we are surrounded\nby the best people. We all try to do the best job we can, and I\u2019m super proud\nof my guys. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have a big road ahead of us\nto try and win this championship in Pomona. That close loss is a tough one to\nswallow. We will get back to work this week, and I\u2019ll keep working on my\nlights. We are still holding the points lead headed to Pomona.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hagan\u2019s TSR\nteammate, Leah Pruett, came to Las Vegas as the NHRA Top Fuel points leader\nfollowing her impressive victory at Dallas two weeks ago. The win gave Pruett a\nfour-point advantage over Doug Kalitta with just two races remaining, Las Vegas\nand Pomona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After qualifying fifth at 3.704 with her TSR Direct Connection Dodge\/\/SRT dragster, Pruett ran a stellar 3.699 in the opening round eliminations but also lost by inches (.002 seconds) to Josh Hart.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pruett, the Norwalk and Dallas Top Fuel winner in 2023, now ranks\nthird in the NHRA Top Fuel points standings, just 34 points behind leader Steve\nTorrence entering the final event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy Dodge\/\/SRT\nDirect Connection team posted our quickest run of the weekend today with a\n3.699 and was quicker than our opponent (Hart),\u201d said Pruett. \u201cHowever, he was\nquicker off the line and was able to nudge us out by two thousandths of a\nsecond. Coming into this race, we knew that anything could change, but the\nfocus was on expanding our points lead, and we couldn’t do that with a\nfirst-round elimination. We are still very much in the mix, in the top and in\nthe hunt coming down to the final race with points and a half. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cAs a driver coming off of a win in Dallas and a \u2018hole-shot\u2019 victory final round, I had confidence coming into battle this weekend, but it\u2019s difficult to do when the best light of the round is in the other lane. My team has my back in a way where I’m going to be able to not only bounce back, but thrive. We win as a team, and we lose as a team. We have a very consistent and well-performing car that\u2019s very capable of gathering qualifying points and winning the final race of the season. Ultimately, that’s what we plan to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event schedule for the NHRA In-N-Out Burger Finals will have two nitro qualifying sessions on Friday, Nov. 10, at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. PST and two nitro qualifying rounds on Saturday, Nov. 11, at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. PST. The final eliminations will begin on Sunday, Nov. 12, at 11 a.m. PST.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Fox Sports 1 telecasts for the NHRA In-N-Out Burger Finals will air qualifying rounds on Sunday, Nov. 12, at 2 p.m. EST. The final eliminations will be televised on Fox Sports 1 on Sunday, Oct. 29, at 5 p.m. EST. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow @dodgemoparmotorsports<\/a> for all the Dodge motorsports happenings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three-time NHRA World Champion Matt Hagan missed advancing to his third straight Funny Car final by inches (.009 seconds) in his Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) Direct Connection Dodge\/\/SRT\u00ae Hellcat at the NHRA Nevada Nationals on Sunday Despite the semifinals exit, Hagan continues to lead the NHRA Camping World Funny Car points standings entering the final race of the 21-event national tour at the NHRA In-N-Out Burger Finals on Nov. 10-12 in Pomona, California. Hagan, seeking his third consecutive NHRA national win, won two rounds of competition in very cold 50-60 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":73993,"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-73988","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\/10\/NHRAVegasRecap_Feature.jpg","social_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/NHRAVegasRecap_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\/73988"}],"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=73988"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74000,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73988\/revisions\/74000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}