After earning his second straight No. 3 spot in qualifying for an NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing
Series national event, Matt Hagan drew his Don Schumacher Racing teammate Jack Beckman in the
opening round of Funny Car eliminations at the NHRA Northwest Nationals.
Beckman, who had qualified 14th, was relegated to the less-favorable left lane, while Hagan was
hoping to continue enjoying a strong performance from the shelor.com Dodge Funny Car.
After a lengthy delay due to at least one oildown in the pairings racing before him, Hagan aced
Beckman at the starting lights with a .105 reaction time (.000 is perfect) to Beckman's .149. But
it wasn't enough to overcome a loss of traction at about 600 feet (of a 1000-foot race track).
Beckman also struck the tires, but crossed the finish line first in 4.605 seconds at 241.67 mph
while Hagan followed with a 6.052/88.10.
"We sat for a really long time out there," said Hagan. "There were a few people blowing up and
oiling down. It appeared that right after Tony (Pedregon) oiled down the track, Mike Neff had a
problem in that right lane. So, it wasn't a surprise that we also smoked the tires pretty hard in
that lane. Beckman lost traction too, but he caught his and pedaled it and he went to the next
round.
"It's unfortunate, because I felt really good about my reaction time, which I have been working
on," added the 26-year-old Angus Cattle farmer from Christiansburg, Va., who slipped to 10th in the
point standings.
"I hadn't smoked the tires in a long time and it just happened so quickly. We have to do something
to change our luck around and make things happen for ourselves and make improvements.
"Rookies have got to pay their dues and I think we're paying a lot of them. Hopefully the back side
of this season is going to be a lot better for us. All we can do is hope."
Next up is the FRAM-Autolite NHRA Nationals at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., July 24-26.
