HAGAN'S DOUBLE LIFE
businessman and by night an ultra super secret agent.Hagan, 26, is both farmer and race car driver, family man and thrill seeker.
At home near Christiansburg (Va) Hagan is a throwback to the traditional American family. He tends the family's 500 acre farm where he raises Angus cattle while his wife raises their two year old son, Colby and is expecting their second child, a girl, any day now. His father co-owns Shelor Motors, a conglomeration of automotive dealerships and Motor Mile Speedway, a short track steeped in racing history.
Matt Hagan is two very different people, it just depends on the location. He's like the CIA secret agent who by day is a mild mannered businessman and by night an ultra super secret agent.
Hagan, 26, is both farmer and race car driver, family man and thrill seeker.
At home near Christiansburg (Va) Hagan is a throwback to the traditional American family. He tends the family's 500 acre farm where he raises Angus cattle while his wife raises their two year old son, Colby and is expecting their second child, a girl, any day now. His father co-owns Shelor Motors, a conglomeration of automotive dealerships and Motor Mile Speedway, a short track steeped in racing history.
Hagan, due to the family ownership if Motor Mile Speedway could have looked to a career in stock car racing, and he did dabble in the local racing for awhile, but thanks to a family friend's invitation, drag racing won his heart first.
“You know, basically what happened was I got with a family friend (Kenny Page) and he said come out and watch me drag race,” explained Hagan when asked about his first exposure to drag racing. “He said 'you can put my dial in on, you can mark up my wheelie bar'. And, at that age you would have thought I was swimming in motor oil, I was so excited to write a dial in on a window, you know.”
Page lit the kindling, but it was Hagan's first drag car that lit that fire that burns so intensely when it comes to racing.
“When I had my first Nova with a 406 and a slapstick in it, it was, you know...even though that car only went 75 miles an hour in an eighth of a mile, it got my heart pumping a lot more than driving a late model at 130 that took two or three laps to get up to speed, you know,” said Hagan, the passion clear in his words. “That was it for me.”
From a helper on Page's race car to running four wheelers and a turn at stock cars, Hagan was certain he wanted to drag race. Thanks to his father, Hagan has gone from a young kid with chalk in hand writing a dial in on a window to strapping into an 8,000 horsepower Funny Car and rocketing down the 1000 foot at times over 300 miles per hour.
When the engines go silent at the drag strip, Hagan returns to the farm. On the morning of this interview he stepped away from tending to new born calves to talk about his year as a rookie in the driver of the Schumacher owned Funny Car.
It has not been an easy year.
“You know, I think it is very tough this year,” agreed Hagan when asked to define his rookie season. “You know, to be honest with you, we've had a lot of missed opportunities this year and I think that we would be way far ahead of where we're at right now. We probably should not be in this situation we're at, fighting to get into a top ten countdown. We should probably already have locked ourselves in with the missed opportunities we've had this year. So yes it's tough, but I think that we've made it tougher on ourselves by missing some opportunities. We have a front running car, we've proved that in qualifying, we just have to make it happen on race day.”
A tough year was made tougher when BrakeSafe, the team's announced sponsor, was gone almost as quickly as the season got started. For any other driver, the loss of sponsor could have been devastating. For Hagan, thanks to the faith of Don Schumacher and the financial resources of his family, the wrenches have kept turning.
“Oh absolutely,” agreed Hagan when asked if the sponsor pull out got the season off on the wrong foot. “We're obviously hunting sponsorship as aggressively as possible. With the economic times it's tough right now. But I feel like I'm in a place with Don Schumacher and his hospitality that if we are going to bring a sponsor in, it'll be done there.
“But absolutely, it scared me to death. You know, you're learning to drive a fast race car and you still have all that on your mind and then on top of it you worry about funding. Not taking anything away from any of these other rookies that are driving, but it looks like they've got pretty secure funding and there's no worries there. So they don't lay in bed at night worrying about 'hey am I going to get to drive next weekend or not'. I've just been very, very fortunate that my family has stepped in and taken the brunt of it and along with Don Schumacher, he's been great, I cannot thank Don enough for doing what he's doing and allowing me to continue to race.”
As Hagan prepped for the season back in December and January, he looked for advice and while he has veterans Ron Capps and Jack Beckman as teammates, experience is the best teacher in a Funny Car. It's not like farming where there a literally hundreds of books from which to draw information.
“I haven't really found any body that I can talk to enough that can tell you what you should and shouldn't do,” Hagan said. “I know Don handed out a couple books here and there, but you know it's like when I got my license from Tim Wilkerson I said, 'hey buddy, you got any advice?' He said, 'man at 300 miles an hour, you're on your own.' I said, 'Okay, I'll get in there and learn it.'
Quite often people in stressful occupations will find a moment to slip away into a happy place. A location where they feel relaxed and they'll try to draw that relaxation into the current situation.
Amazingly, Matt Hagan admits he has never let his mind drift back to the farm while awaiting his turn to run down the drag strip.
“You know I wish I could say that I have done that, but I really haven't. The race track is just so intense and there's so much going on that I try to put all of my focus into the car and making sure I do a good job driving. That car, it demands your attention, when you're driving it, when you're starting it. Just the smallest detail on these cars, if you don't pay attention to it you can get somebody hurt. I wish I could do that and have some release there, but when I get to the track I try to absolutely focus one hundred and ten percent on what I need to do at the task at hand.”
At the farm, Hagan is a farmer. At the track, he's all driver.
“Pretty much. I try to keep it that way. Obviously I read a lot of farm books and stuff at night, you know just with rotational grazing and crops and stuff like that, to learn as much as I can. But when I wake up in the morning and strap my butt to that car it's one hundred percent that race car.”
Rotational grazing? Is there any correlation between where and when cows eat and working on a race car? Evidently, there is.
When the lights go down on the racetrack, Hagan is quick to get back into the mode of being a farmer. It's his way of relieving the stress no matter how much work his faces in the fields.
“It's been pretty hectic back home,” said Hagan, who took time off from tending to new born calves to do this interview. “But, it's also a really good release for me to be able to get back, it's so intensive, intense at the race track, so adrenaline driven and it's a lot of focus. So to be able to come back and just kinda have that release a little bit here at the farm, it's been great for me. You know a lot of guys will go back and work on their race car and their kinda involved with it and you know, more than I guess I am, but on the other side, sometimes that can get old after a while, you know. So it's always new and always changing for me to be able to come back and get back home to the farm. Work hard at it, try and make a dollar out here and then go back to racing on the weekends and really focus on that and make sure I do a good job there.”
As you read this, Hagan will have left the farm behind for a trip to Riley's Hospital for Children in Indianapolis and then on to O'Reilly Raceway Park for the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals, the final race before the Countdown to 1. To be a contender for the Championship, Hagan has to exit the weekend 10th in the points. He's currently 11th. The pressure is on.
“I think Thursday I'm gonna have fun because I'm gonna be over at the children's hospital and I'm not even going to worry about racing,” Hagan said. “I'm gonna be there and try to put a smile on those kid's face and drag racing...Friday morning when I get up and get strapped in that car, that's when I'll worry about it. I'll get focused then, get a good night's rest on Thursday night and get up early and try to get that car qualified. You know I'm going to leave everything out there. I'm not going to look back and say if I'd have done this or done that. I'm going to do the best I can do, I'm going to try to cut the best light I can on qualifying and on race day and make sure that we have every advantage and that our team does well.”
No matter what happens in Indy, Hagan will return to the farm on Tuesday, maybe a little disappointed, but definitely not broken.
“No, absolutely not,” agreed Hagan when asked if not making the Countdown would be the end of the world. “Obviously if we don't make it there's still six or seven opportunities to go out there and win a race. And that's what my main goal is this year. I mean obviously the goal I set for myself was to try to qualify at every race and win one of these things. That opportunity is still very attainable. Don't get me wrong, I would love to be in the top ten, and so would Don Schumacher. That's his main focus here, to run for a championship. But if we don't make it, it's not the end of the world, but we are going to be disappointed because we know we have a team and a car that should be in the top ten.”
Anyone who misses the Countdown will be disappointed. Some will take it better than others. You can be certain, Hagan will go back to the farm, hug his wife, son and soon to arrive daughter, tend the cattle, bale the hay and show everyone how in life he is a veteran. It's only on paper, on a racetrack, in a Funny Car that he is a rookie.
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