Losing a crew chief a driver has worked with for over a decade can be a stinging loss. But when their successor has worked together with you for about as long, that sting quickly transforms into a smooth transition.
Matt Hagan, whose longtime crew chief Dickie Venables left Tony Stewart Racing last December, found a smooth transition into the Mike “Stretch” Knudsen era.
“It’s been good,” Hagan said. “The thing about it is I’ve been able to see Stretch come up from a bottom-end guy all the way to clutch guy through assistant crew chief and now into crew chief. I’ve been very, very blessed to win championships with two different crew chiefs [Tommy DeLago, Venables], and obviously, we want to win some races and one day win a championship with Stretch. I’m just blessed to have a group of guys around me that we’ve kept together for so long. Stretch, this is his 16th year here as a group.”
Hagan and Venables had a lot of sweat equity together in drag racing, but as he will attest, sometimes a program will run its course. While Hagan never publicly said it, the writing was on the wall late last season. Business is one thing, but the heart is another.
“I hated to see Dickie leave,” Hagan admitted. “I know he’s going to do really well over there with JR. JR and those guys run strong, and Dickie was going to be a great add anywhere he was going to go.”
Hagan’s team has had minimal turnover throughout the years, and last season, it’s been as much as he’s ever faced. Not only did Venables depart, but also longtime bottom-end specialist Bill Haskins.
“He just didn’t want to go racing anymore,” Hagan said. “He wanted to move to Florida and ride his motorcycle. We picked up a new guy from Capps car, and it had just been a simple gelling process. I think that’s the biggest thing. You just have ten guys that show up with a smile and a wrench in their hands, and you’re ready to go do big things.”
When the announcement of Knudsen’s promotion by Tony Stewart Racing, Hagan admitted he’d already seen a glimpse of his talent following last season’s Texas NHRA FallNationals victory. He revealed Knudsen was already working in the role.
“I won on two holeshots, but he was tuning the race car and doing everything, making all the calls,” Hagan said. “So I think that was a real big, “Hey, I can do this moment,” showing it to Tony [Stewart] last year when that happened.
“It was a weird race because I wanted to be super excited for Newt tuning the car and making all the calls to win the race, but also have to be very respectful to Dickie. And it’s one of those things where Dickie was still up in the air, whether he was going to be a consultant over here and help with both cars or if he was going to go somewhere else, and he decided to go somewhere else. At the end of the day, I think we’ll be just fine, and we got to keep working hard.”
Additionally, with Hagan was the addition of proven tuner Phil Shuler.
“Phil was definitely someone that fit in,” Hagan said. “Newt came up through Phil, where he was doing clutch and stuff over there on Spencer Massey’s car and different things like that. So Phil was one of those guys that when Newt decided to be assistant crew chief, Phil was like, ‘Hey, I’m not going to let you fail.”
“These guys really mesh well together. They got a lot of chemistry together. So it’s just exciting to see it all come together.”
It all came together for Hagan, qualifying second at the PRO Superstar Shootout with a 3.820. But the real testament came on Wednesday during the private testing portion when he clicked off at 800 feet and still ran a 3.850.
“The car’s really working well,” Hagan said. “The guys are really jiving. We got four guys doing four different positions this year, and I picked up a bottom-end guy. We will be just fine.”
Hagan says those are just words, but the numbers… they don’t lie.
