Matt Hagan Drives His Dodge Charger Hellcat to a Second Straight Win

Matt Hagan was winless through the first four races of the NHRA 2024 season, but in claiming back-to-back wins with his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat funny car, he has now moved up into the top spot in the early championship race. More importantly for now, Hagan is building momentum and beginning to exhibit the dominance that we have come to be accustomed to from the reigning champion.

After winning at the Four Wide Nationals in late April, Matt Hagan and the Tony Stewart Racing team came into the Gerber Collision and Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals with high hopes. Unfortunately, Hagan didn’t get out of the gates quite as well as he usually does, with his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat funny car struggling through qualifying. He was 6^th after the first round with a 4.012 while top qualifier Austin Prock ran a 3.945, but he ran into issues on his second and third qualifying runs before running a 4.104 in Q4. As a result, he started in the 11^th spot on the ladder. Fortunately, while Matt Hagan’s Charger wasnt the quickest car in the funny car class, it was consistently quick through eliminations.

In the first round, Hagan and his Dodge Charger ran a 4.087 to beat Ron Capps in his Toyota Supra and in E2, Hagan laid down a 4.082 to beat the Dodge of Paul Lee. In the third round of elims, Hagan ran a 4.050 to beat Blake Alexander, setting up a final round battle with John Force and his Chevrolet Camaro.

In the final round of the Gerber Collision and Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals, Matt Hagan and his Tony Stewart Racing Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat funny car ran a 3.998 at 323.27 – his best pass of the weekend – while John Force made his worst pass of the day, losing with a 4.096. However, based on Hagan’s previous three runs, Force would have had to lay down a much quicker pass to have beaten the Dodge even if Hagan hadn’t made his best run of the event. You can watch that final round battle in the video below from the NHRA YouTube channel.

With this second-straight win, Matt Hagan now has 478 points towards the 2024 Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Funny Car Championship, leading Austin Prock by four points. It is very early in the season, but Matt Hagan is already asserting himself as the man to beat in the Funny Car class title race.

As mentioned above, fellow Dodge Charger funny car driver Paul Lee lost to Hagan in E2 after qualifying third. Cruz Pedregon and his Dodge Charger funny car qualified in the eighth spot, but when he ran into problems during his race against Daniel Wilkerson, Pedregon was done after the first round. On the season, Lee currently sits ninth in points, 206 points behind Hagan, while Pedregon is in 12^th, 258 points out of the lead.