Matt Hagan certainly didn’t look like he had the dominant nitro Funny Car heading into race day at the Lucas Oil Winternationals.

However, the Tony Stewart Racing driver found his grove on Sunday in his Dodge Direct Connect Charger SRT Hellcat.

By late Sunday afternoon, Hagan clocked a 3.967-second time at 328.06 mph to defeat reigning world champion Ron Capps’ 4.303-second lap in the finals at the In-N-Out Burger Pomona (Calif.) Dragstrip.

Sunday’s triumph was Hagan’s 45th career NHRA nitro Funny Car win and his second this season as he also was victorious at the season-opening Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla., on March 12. This was Hagan’s seventh national event win at Pomona and fourth at the Winternationals. On Sunday, Hagan disposed of Blake Alexander, Alexis DeJoria, Terry Haddock, and Capps. Hagan, a three-time nitro Funny Car world champ with Don Schumacher Racing in 2011, 2014, and 2020 leads the points standings after Pomona. He is 26 points ahead of Capps.

“First of all, it was nice to be able to come out here and debut Haas Automation and I'm very proud to represent Haas; what a name in motorsports period,” Hagan said. “To have Tony (Stewart) here this weekend and TSR and everybody who is behind this stuff. How great is it for Tony to come over to drag racing and bring all these new sponsors and crossover and I really feel like it is going to help our sport. Not just with our team but with other teams.

“What a wonderful day, and it’s kind of tough out there; the right lane has been giving us fits even back to last year. I feel like it kind of cost us the opportunity to be in the championship hunt. We never got down the right lane and it was favored, and we picked the left lane, and we didn’t get down it either. The right lane with that bump the clutch comes into it, and it was a handful all day. Just trying to drag you inside, and you are just fighting it all the way down through there. I feel like I kind of earned my money today. For (crew chief) Dickie Venables and all the guys who wrench on this car, they just always find a way to put a great race car underneath me and I just try and rise to the occasion and go down the racetrack and turn on four win lights.”

A year ago, Hagan finished third in the final points standings behind Capps and Robert Hight. This season, Hagan has a 9-1 elimination round record. “When I woke up (Sunday morning), I was like, we have a little hill to climb,” Hagan said. “As things progress and as the car goes down the racetrack you get more confident and more confident. Just to watch what Dickie does out there on the racetrack, there’s very few weekends that he doesn’t impress me. I’m glad to have him in our corner, and I told him a long time ago I hope I am able to retire my career with him as my crew chief. At the end of the day, I’m just super proud of our guys.”

Capps, Hight, and Hagan are the powers to beat in nitro Funny Car right now, but Hagan knows there are plenty of other contenders.

“There are still other cars besides Capps, Hight, and me that you have to watch out for,” Hagan said. “Funny Car is just tough. Hat’s off to Terry Haddock today; look at that. The guy showed up for every round and put a lot of heavy hitters on the trailer and he’s just racing his race. I was really proud of Terry. Those guys were really excited to go that many rounds this weekend.

“Funny Car is really tough. Today I got up and I was in the final round, and I have to be up for this guy (Capps). Dickie and Guido (Capps’ crew chief) and those guys and (Jimmy) Prock, they run pretty close together. They pretty much get all you can get out there. For me, if I can give us a little bit on the starting line, that is what I feel need to do to rise as a driver to the occasion and make sure we put a couple of hundredths in the bank. If the car can be there as well, it is a hard combination to beat. I don’t think there is ever going to be any rounds against Capps or Hight that will be easy. Funny Car is a dogfight. Every time I crawl into that race car and put my mouthpiece in, I feel like I’m going into battle.”

Hagan qualified a pedestrian No. 10 at 3.962 seconds at 302.96 mph, but he insisted his team wasn’t playing coy.

“As much as I would like to sit here and beat on our chest and say we have won two races out of the three, we are still working through some stuff. What Dickie has been able to do with TSR, at DSR we had a bunch of teammates and the knowledge got spread around so you never really had that advantage. Dickie put a stamp on this deal with innovation on the chassis and some different things we are doing, and we are going to keep that in-house. We still have a lot of stuff to work through. This car is heavier, so I had to lose a little bit more weight. Even though we have won two out of three races, we are still working through a combination. I think there is a lot to learned. I’m excited to get to racetrack that is smooth and doesn’t have tricky lanes.

“It used to be like driving the car 300 mph, ‘Oh man.’ Now what gets my adrenaline going is knowing who is next to me in the lane and what type of caliber of a driver is beside me and trying to leave on them and keeping it in the groove. That’s what keeps my heart racing.”