{"id":3120,"date":"2018-06-27T19:46:42","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T19:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/?p=3120"},"modified":"2018-06-27T19:52:42","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T19:52:42","slug":"hagan-hard-to-handle-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/?p=3120","title":{"rendered":"Hagan Hard to Handle Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Hagan headed a successful weekend for Mopar Dodge\/\/SRT during the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals, muscling his Mopar Express Lane Dodge Charger R\/T Funny Car to his second victory of the season at Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio<\/p>\n

Hagan\u2019s triumph was the second consecutive and fourth overall this season for a Mopar Dodge Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) <\/b>Funny Car <\/b>driver, and the sixth win of 2018 in the NHRA Nitro classes. Hagan also leapfrogged into a tie for second in the Funny Car standings with DSR Dodge teammate Jack Beckman.<\/p>\n

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(Matt Hagan powered to his 2nd NHRA national event of the season)<\/p><\/div>\n

Hagan, seeking a bit of redemption after first-round exits in the previous two events, began Norwalk eliminations with back-to-back battles against Mopar Dodge Funny Car DSR teammates. First up was Tommy Johnson Jr., with Hagan\u2019s quick reflexes helping to score a close holeshot win by an ultra-thin margin of less than one-thousandth of a second. Hagan was again first off the starting line in an all-Mopar Dodge quarterfinals fight, pulling away to defeat Beckman with a 4.010\/322.27 pass.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hagan led from start to finish stripe in the semifinals, reeling off a 3.981\/320.58 to defeat J.R. Todd and earn all-important lane choice against No. 1 qualifier Courtney Force in his fourth final round of the season and 51st of his career.<\/p>\n

Hagan saved his best reaction time for the money round, a .033-second mark that gave him a jump over Force that he would never relinquish, recording a winning 4.094\/288.21 to his opponent\u2019s losing 4.220\/227.54 effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuper proud of my guys,” said Matt. “These cats have been working hard and we\u2019ve obviously had a track prep change that we needed to adapt to and it took (crew chief) Dickie (Venables) a few runs to get there, but that\u2019s why I love him and I\u2019m glad he\u2019s in my corner. He always figures it out.”<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a good, solid car all weekend. Qualified well, went down the race track pretty much every lap. It hazed the tires out there and I was legging it out, but it\u2019s the finals, man, and I didn\u2019t care if it was going to blow the body off of it or what. All I knew was I didn\u2019t see her (opponent Courtney Force) beside me.”<\/p>\n

The victory was Hagan\u2019s second of the season, 28th of his career and first-ever at Norwalk.<\/p>\n

Posted by Darren Jacobs<\/p>\n

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Courtney Force recorded low ET of the event during qualifying and maintained her overall points lead with a runner-up finish.<\/p><\/div>\n

Event Essentials: \u00a0 NHRA Summit Racing\u00a0Equipment Nationals (June 22-24th, 2018)\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nNAME<\/strong><\/td>\nET<\/strong><\/td>\nMPH<\/strong><\/td>\nCAREER WIN<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Winner:<\/strong><\/td>\nMatt Hagan<\/td>\n\u00a04.094<\/td>\n288.21<\/td>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 28th<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
R\/UP:<\/strong><\/td>\nCourtney Force<\/td>\n\u00a04.220<\/td>\n227.54<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Low ET:<\/strong><\/td>\nCourtney Force<\/td>\n3.935<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Top Speed:<\/strong><\/td>\nCourtney Force<\/td>\n<\/td>\n327.66<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Bump Spot:<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/td>\n\u00a04.302<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Event Entries:<\/strong><\/td>\n\u00a018 Cars<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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JR Todd had another strong NHRA event – placing in the “final four” in the DHL Toyota.<\/p><\/div>\n

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John Force had a good event run at NHRA Norwalk – qualifying #4 (3.991 secs) and also going to the semi-final round.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Now driving this Toyota bodied car – John Smith qualified on the FC bump.<\/p><\/div>\n

Photos by Bruce Biegler and Dave DeAngelis<\/em><\/p>\n

For more Funny Car racing images from the Summit Racing Equipment Nationals visit our event photo gallery: HERE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matt Hagan headed a successful weekend for Mopar Dodge\/\/SRT during the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals, muscling his Mopar Express Lane Dodge Charger R\/T Funny Car to his second victory of the season at Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio Hagan\u2019s triumph was the second consecutive and fourth overall this season for a Mopar Dodge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[20,59,32],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3120"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3126,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3120\/revisions\/3126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitrofccanada.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}