NHRA Gatornationals Post-Race Recap
Matt Hagan began his title defense at one of the few remaining venues on the NHRA tour where a victory has eluded him. Hagan, who was presented with his 2020 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series Funny Car championship ring on Saturday during qualifying at the NHRA Gatornationals, has come close to a Gainesville Raceway triumph, finishing as the runner-up in 2018, but had yet to seal-the-deal. He was hoping his luck would change on Sunday at the 2021 season-opener, but once again he felt a Gatornationals victory slip through his fingers as he found himself on the wrong side of a really close drag race.
Hagan qualified the Mopar Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye eighth to draw Bob Tasca III in round one. Hagan and Tasca were nearly even leaving the starting line with Hagan clocking a .072 reaction time to Tasca’s .074, and both drivers posted nearly identical E.T.s, (Hagan, 3.922, Tasca, 3.920), but Tasca narrowly claimed the upset win with a 0.0001-second margin of victory, ending the champ’s day early.
“We had a good test session in West Palm Beach to kick off the year and we were on the bad side of a really, really good drag race today to (Bob) Tasca. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tasca goes out and wins it. That’s a good car. It’s tough out there and we were on the tough side of the ladder. We would have had (Ron) Capps, our teammate, in the second round. It was going to be a dog fight all day. I have to say a lot about (my crew chief) Dickie Venables and (assistant crew chief) Mike Knudsen and this Dodge Mopar team and their leadership. The guys worked late working through some gremlins and put a really good race car under me. We’ll be back out here for the next one and will get back after it.”
Consistency, resiliency earned Matt Hagan a third Funny Car championship
As a guy who rides a tractor when he’s not wheeling his 11,000-hp Mopar Funny Car, the farmer in Matt Hagan is very familiar with the old encouragement to “Make hay while the sun shines.” So, when the two-race-old NHRA racing season resumed in July after a four-month hiatus due to the pandemic, with no idea how much racing would comprise a season that seemed at risk with every new developing COVID-19 headline, Hagan took the old saw to heart.
“You never knew when the season was going to stop, so you had to hustle at every race,” he said. “You had to show up every round and get every point, and you knew that if you lost a race it could be the difference between winning the championship or not, and there was going to be no restart, no do-overs.”
Hagan’s advantage was crew chief Dickie Venables, who had spent the offseason developing a new combination that some of his rival crew chiefs under the Don Schumacher Racing umbrella said would never work. But when they opened the season with a pair of No. 1 qualifying efforts in Pomona and Phoenix, and later showed uncanny consistency, the proof was there as plain as the three Wallys he won in the 11-race season and the third career championship trophy that Hagan hoisted at the season finale in Las Vegas.
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FC Points
Unofficial NHRA Championship Standings
Funny Car
| 1 | J.R. Todd | 114 |
| 2 | Robert Hight | 95 |
| 3 | Cruz Pedregon | 73 |
| 4 | Bob Tasca III | 72 |
| 5 | Ron Capps | 64 |
| 6 | Alexis DeJoria | 60 |
| 7 | Tim Wilkerson | 57 |
| 8 | John Force | 56 |
| 9 | Matt Hagan | 34 |
| 10 | Chad Green | 32 |
| 10 | Paul Lee | 32 |
| 10 | Blake Alexander | 32 |
Hagan Cattle Co
