NHRA Rookie Matt Hagan grabbed the provisional Funny Car pole position in the second round of
qualifying for the FRAM-Autolite Nationals, driving the shelor.com Dodge.
Under near perfect conditions on a stellar track surface, Hagan pulled out a steady, straight run
of 4.068 seconds at a top speed 307.51 mph, the quickest and fastest run of his career, to claim
his first provisional No. 1. In today's first pass, he was No. 4 with a 4.213/287.78.
Two more rounds of qualifying on Saturday will determine the 16-car field for Sunday's
eliminations.
"It was just a great run at this great track," said the 26-year-old Angus Cattle farmer from
Christiansburg, Va. "These fans out here got a great show today, with cars going down the race
track. We're excited to do that. Don Schumacher puts all the right stuff underneath us to make us
go out there and do that.
"And it says a lot for our team, being a rookie team and being able to come out here and do that,
in just great weather conditions. It was just something that needed to come together for us, for
our morale, for our team. We've been kind of in a little bit of a slump right now and that really
gets the guys' heads up and it really puts them in a positive attitude out here."
As for the strong head winds tonight, "It goes to show [how good] our R&D program [is]. Don
Schumacher is...putting in a lot of money into our R&D, and even with that strong head wind out
here, as you noticed, a lot of these Schumacher cars are running strong. And it just goes to show
you what we can do with the right program and just a little bit of luck out there.
"It set me back in the seat and started sparking the flywheel real hard out there and I was, like,
Whoa, what's that? and then the clutch went one to one and it felt like it took off again. I knew
it was on a killer run. I was just trying to keep up with the car out there, it's dark a little
bit, so [I was] trying to keep it in the groove and make sure I didn't drive it out of there and
smoke the tires and let everybody down.
"A little nerve-wracking not knowing what to do when it's sparking that bad inside and I said,
Well, I'm just going to keep my foot in it. I'll say 'sorry' later if I did something wrong. It was
a good deal."
