Don’t ever sleep on Matt Hagan.
The veteran driver has NHRA Funny Car championships to prove it – 2011, 2014, 2020 and 2023. And now he’s in position to make a run at another title after this weekend.
Hagan won the 14th annual NAPA Auto Parts NHRA Midwest Nationals on Sunday near St. Louis to move into second place in the standings, just 20 points behind reigning champ Austin Prock.
Hagan clocked a 3.979-second elapsed time at 329.34 mph in the finals to edge Jack Beckman’s 4.032, 314.83.
“Well, we were just joking about my mustache, so it’s like, man, I don’t get to shave it. I was kind of looking forward to shaving it, and now I guess I got to keep it, but it is all good,” Hagan said. “And I told my guys when we came into this race … we’re all chasing Austin, right? They’ve won eight races this year, but no one’s infallible, right? You just have to be ready when they mess up. And they messed up today.”
“I was kind of joking up there. Jack was giving a top-end interview, and I was like, ‘Damn, the kid’s beatable.’ We just had to be able to take advantage of that. And Mike Knudsen, Phil Shuler, Alex Conway – they really, really worked hard all day in putting a good race car underneath me.”
This was Hagan’s second win of the season – he won at Seattle in mid-July – and the 54th of his career. He had previously been victorious at the track near St. Louis in 2021 and 2023.
“I just felt good about today as far as the race car. My lights weren’t great. My first round was … I think I had a .114 light. I can’t remember the last time I cut a .114 light,” he said, adding, “We’ve been blowing up a lot, and we’ve got a lot of different injectors on, and to be able to go to my crew chief and going like, ‘I feel like I’m covering it up, but I’m not.’ He went out there [and made adjustments], and next thing I had a .60 light.
“That was huge to me as a driver, when I can go to a crew chief and go, ‘Hey, what help can you give me here?’ He’s like, ‘Well, let me go see.’ And he went out there and did that, and my lights came around, and that gave me confidence going into the next couple rounds. That’s the kind of stuff that, I think, makes you a strong team, right?”
On Sunday, Hagan ousted Alex Laughlin, Cruz Pedregon, Daniel Wilkerson and then Beckman out of the John Force Racing stable.
“We won our first race here in St. Louis a couple years ago,” Hagan said. “Everybody kind of thinks Austin’s run away with it, and he has been … [Crew chief] Jimmy Prock is like Superman sometimes. I’ve seen Jimmy go out here and just kill it, and I’ve also seen Jimmy not win a round in a Countdown. But they’re on it. And the kid’s a good driver, right? He kills the tree, keeps it in the groove. And he doesn’t need my respect, but I got a lot of respect for him. And they put a tough combination together to beat. …
“We just have to be ready when they mess up, and we did that today. So proud of my guys for stepping up, rising to the occasion, putting a great racecar underneath me. I think Phil Shuler, my assistant crew chief, he’s back-to-back out here. I think he won here last year in a dragster, and won here in a Funny Car now, so this place has got a little good juju, and we’ll just hopefully keep carrying that forward. We got three races to go and it’s anybody’s ballgame right now.”
The three remaining races are: Dallas, Oct. 9-12; Las Vegas (Oct. 30-Nov. 2); and Pomona, Calif. (Nov. 13-16).
“I’ve been on both sides of it where it’s like when we did COVID and you just run as hard as you can and you don’t know when it’s going to end, and you just hope you got enough points when they stop the season. And then you come here and you reset the deal, and you’re going, ‘Man, we closed the gap and we need to take advantage of that,’” Hagan said. “So, I’m really glad that they do a regular=season champion. I think that that’s definitely something that they should continue. Too many guys and girls work so hard out here for them not to get a little pat on the back and a little check for that, because it means a lot. It means day in and day out that you’ve done what you’re supposed to do.”
Hagan knows nothing will come easy in the final three races.
“Yeah, it’s tough. The thing about Austin is that he’s still very young as a driver, and I think that he hasn’t been in some of those situations where you’re on fire and you’re blowing up and the car’s moving left and right and that kind of stuff. His dad and his brother put a phenomenal race car underneath him, and those things will come. You do this long enough and it’s going to happen. But I think some of those things you just have to get through but it makes you a better driver.
“And he’s driving with a lot of confidence right now and has great lights, but when the car starts blowing up and it’s changing lanes and doing different things, it changes your psyche. I think you have to go through some of that stuff, too, to be a well-rounded driver. And not taking anything away from him; they do a great job. But when you start feeling pressure and you start trying to do things, that’s when you start seeing things happen. And they’re a great team over there, but I think that it just goes to show that they’re beatable. They showed that today. They’ve shown it a couple times in the past, but it’s not very often, so you have to take advantage of that when they do.”
To win another world title, Hagan is keeping things simple.
“But I think what we have to do is just be consistent, and we have to be there, and we need to push so hard that we mess up,” Hagan said. “I think people deal with pressure in a lot of different ways, and for me, when I’ve dealt with championships, it’s always about what do I have control over? And then when you really break it down, it’s not that many things, right? It’s just, leave on time, keep it in the groove, turn the win light on. Those things are very important, but I can’t worry about what the cylinder head guy’s doing, or my bottom end guy’s doing, or who I’m racing over there, what they’re doing. I just got to do my job.”
Hagan has carved out an incredible drag racing career, and he has enjoyed the ride.
“I’ve been able to accomplish everything I’ve ever set out to do here in the sport. This is 54 races, and we’ve had four championships and set a lot of world records, and I’ve got a group of guys right now that it’s fun to come to work with, right? They truly show up with a smile on their face and a wrench in their hand, and we’re all grab-assing and having fun and slapping each other on the ass, and it is locker-room banter stuff. It feels like you’re playing on the college football team, right? You’re just in there and rah-rah, and it’s just fun to show up for work, man,” Hagan said.
Team owner Tony Stewart “doesn’t come in there with an axe on his shoulder and chopping heads off, so it’s a great work environment. We have the opportunity to have fun. You need to, because everybody can be taken too seriously out of here.”
