{"id":76950,"date":"2024-03-04T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=76950"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:19:15","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:19:15","slug":"stewart-makes-top-fuel-debut-at-55th-annual-nhra-gatornationals-defending-champ-hagan-begins-funny-car-title-defense-in-dodge-srt-hellcat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/racing\/2024\/03\/stewart-makes-top-fuel-debut-at-55th-annual-nhra-gatornationals-defending-champ-hagan-begins-funny-car-title-defense-in-dodge-srt-hellcat.html","title":{"rendered":"Stewart Makes Top Fuel Debut at 55th Annual NHRA Gatornationals, Defending Champ Hagan Begins Funny Car Title Defense in Dodge\/\/SRT\u00ae Hellcat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The most anticipated debut of a Top Fuel driver in over a decade takes place on March 8-10 in the 55th annual NHRA Amalie Gatornationals when NASCAR Hall of Fame racer Tony Stewart competes in the Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) Dodge\/\/SRT<sup>\u00ae<\/sup> Direct Connection dragster in the opening event of the 21-race NHRA Mission Drag Racing Series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stewart, a former series champion in NASCAR, IndyCar and USAC competition, enters his fourth motorsports discipline at the highest level with the Top Fuel division in NHRA, as the Indiana driver makes his Top Fuel \u201crookie\u201d showing in an 11,000-horsepower Dodge dragster at Gainesville Raceway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m trying to get through this learning curve right now with the Top Fuel dragster,\u201d said Stewart, who takes the wheel of the TSR Dodge\/\/SRT Direct Connection dragster after his wife Leah Pruett made the decision to sit out the 2024 campaign to start a family. Pruett will serve as strategist and driving coach for the TSR team. \u201cThis is probably one of the biggest challenges I have ever faced in my racing career. I\u2019ve been through so many divisions and types of racecars that I have had to learn in my career, and this might be the toughest of all of them. Now just trying to figure these cars will be the most exciting part of it for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s a huge advantage for a rookie in my situation. I have confidence in the team, and I know that they are way stronger at this point of the season than I am. It gives me a big confidence boost. It allows me to literally just work on all the little nuances in learning how to drive a new car. This is way different than anything I\u2019ve ever done in motorsports in my life. It\u2019s not like a NASCAR or IndyCar track where I can go and make 100 laps in a day easily. This is a situation where on a great day, you\u2019re going to have four maybe five runs in testing, so every lap that we get is super important right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Stewart makes his initial Top Fuel appearance at Gainesville, his TSR teammate, veteran Matt Hagan, seeks his third consecutive Gatornationals Funny Car win in the nitro-burning TSR Direct Connection Dodge\/\/SRT Hellcat when qualifying begins on Friday, March 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hagan matched legends Don \u201cSnake\u201d Prudhomme and Kenny Bernstein last year by scoring a fourth NHRA World Funny Car Championship and the first world title for Tony Stewart Racing. Hagan recorded a season-high six NHRA national event victories in 2023 and now is just one win away from a coveted 50 career triumphs entering the 2024 NHRA Mission Drag Racing Series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt would be really unbelievable to win Gainesville a third time,\u201d said Hagan. \u201cIt\u2019s so hard to win any of these races and anything can happen. We\u2019re going to work really hard to kick the season off well again. Gainesville has been a better track to me the last few years. We have a lot of data to work with from the last two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe have a group that is well-oiled with a lot of chemistry, synergy and energy as we have proven with last year\u2019s championship. I&#8217;m super confident in everything that my guys do. Tony is going to be learning to drive the dragster this season, so it&#8217;ll give us an opportunity to help those guys also if they need it. I have confidence in Tony and his TSR dragster team just like my Funny Car squad. I\u2019d love to win Gainesville for a third time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hagan and Stewart have tested their respective new TSR Direct Connection Dodge\/\/SRT racecars in recent weeks in preparing for the NHRA Amalie Gatornationals, and will debut brand new 2024 TSR Dodge\/\/SRT Direct Connection red-and-black race car liveries when the pair hit the strip at Gainesville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nitro qualifying is scheduled for Friday, March 8, at 3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. EST. Saturday qualifying takes place at 1:20 p.m. and 4 p.m. EST with Sunday\u2019s final eliminations set for 10:30 a.m. EDT.&nbsp;<br><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The most anticipated debut of a Top Fuel driver in over a decade takes place on March 8-10 in the 55th annual NHRA Amalie Gatornationals when NASCAR Hall of Fame racer Tony Stewart competes in the Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) Dodge\/\/SRT\u00ae Direct Connection dragster in the opening event of the 21-race NHRA Mission Drag Racing Series. Stewart, a former series champion in NASCAR, IndyCar and USAC competition, enters his fourth motorsports discipline at the highest level with the Top Fuel division in NHRA, as the Indiana driver makes his Top [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":76949,"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-76950","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\/2024\/03\/TSRGainesville_Feature.jpg","social_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/TSRGainesville_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\/76950"}],"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=76950"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76956,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76950\/revisions\/76956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}