“That is obviously not the way we want to start the season and the Gatornationals, as the defending event winner the last two years. But that is drag racing and the sport will humble you. We have to keep things in perspective. No one in the trailer was expecting the car to knock the tires off at the hit like that. Sometimes these things happen and you go back to the drawing board. We were trying to be aggressive and I think it was too much for what the track was going to handle. We were pushing and it’s hard for me to be upset with anyone when we’re trying to run hard and be aggressive and fast.
As bad as it is, you just move onto Pomona. I know the type of car we have and the type of guys we have. That’s comforting knowing we have a lot of runs and races ahead of us. We’re still in a bit of a test mode ironing some things out. We’ll just keep moving forward and do the best job we can.”
- Earned No. 5 provisional qualifying position in Q1 on Friday (3.942 ET at 326.87 mph)
- Earned No. 4 provisional qualifying position in Q2 on Friday (3.883 ET at 331.20 mph)
- Maintained No. 4 provisional qualifying position based off of Friday’s Q2 run. In Q3 on Saturday, Hagan ran 4.243 ET at 215.27 mph.
- Secured No. 4 qualifying position based off of Friday’s Q2 run. Funny Car was unable to run Q4 due to rain.
- Advanced to Round 2 on Sunday:
- Round 1: 3.869 ET at 329.58 mph, defeated Daniel Wilkerson (3.927 ET at 317.12 mph)
- Round 2: 9.794 ET at 123.26 mph, lost to Chad Green (3.968 ET at 323.50 mph)
- Currently sixth in the Funny Car championship standings, 59 points behind leader J.R. Todd.
