During the Reading weekend last year, Matt Hagan was dashing about the eastern half of the United States, trying to put his Mopar Express Lane / Rocky Boots Dodge Charger at the top of the field, then flying home to Southwestern Virginia to be present at the birth of his third child, Tucker. He aced both assignments. Hagan led the field, flew home Saturday night, returned Sunday morning to race, and advanced to the semifinals.

“That was such a crazy race here last year,” Hagan said, marveling that “next week my son will be one [year old]. I was up basically two days and running on two hours of sleep. But I wouldn’t trade that for the world. We ended up in the semis against Capps and I got beat on a holeshot. I feel like my guys understand why. I had no sleep and was up watching my kid being born. Win, lose or draw, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

“To watch him grow and see what my wife’s done and all the work that she’s put in, you know to get him to be a year old almost now, it’s just pretty amazing. So very blessed. He’s healthy, he’s happy, and he’s a fat little chunk right now. He’s just crawling around and trying to walk, and trying to talk - just a handful for my wife.”  

He said son Colby and daughter Penny “help out a little bit. They’re seven and 10, so they kind of, they’ll grab him and slap a new diaper on him and good to go. He wants to keep up with them now. So it really pushes him to kind of grow and do some cool stuff. But it’s been good. Just very, very, very blessed."

For as worn out as he was at this race last season, he actually looked healthier than he does this time. “I got a cold,” he said between sniffles. “Unfortunately our kids started back to school a couple weeks back, and as soon as that happens . . .  I was home for two days, and they were sick, and kids, it just hits you. They’re all over you, you know. And so I was like, ‘Well, I guess I’ll get whatever you guys got.’ That’s just part of having kids. You just deal with it. You just get through it, just a head cold, it ain’t the flu or nothing like that. There’s no replacement driver or nothing when you feel bad, so you just crawl in there and take a little [medicine] and hope for the best. I’m still very blessed to do what I do, whether you’ve got a cold, or you feel good, or you feel bad. It’s just an awesome experience to get in one of those cars and be able to hit the loud pedal.”