Let the dominance continue for nitro Funny Car driver Matt Hagan. Hagan won his third race – out of four this season – when he took the victory at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals Sunday at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The Tony Stewart Racing driver plowed through the competition in his Dodge Direct Connect Charger SRT Hellcat.

In his final quad, Hagan clocked a 3.943-second elapsed time at 326.79 mph to defeat Tim Wilkerson (3.96 seconds), John Force (4.005), and Chad Green (4.222).

This was Hagan’s 46th career NHRA nitro Funny Car win. Hagan, who won NHRA nitro Funny Car world championships in 2011, 2014 and 2020, won a career-best five national events in 2013. He has won four races in a season in 2014-17, 2019, and 2022.

“Let’s start it off talking about Tony (Stewart, who won the Top Alcohol Dragster title in Vegas); the guy is amazing,” Hagan said. “It is pretty cool. I saw that he won, and I thought there’s no pressure. Then he comes and crawls under the car and said, ‘I just won. You better win. Let’s go.’ I thought I feel a little pressure now. It is great to be able to share this winner’s circle with Tony Stewart. It is a huge highlight of my career.

“People don’t realize what type of guy he is. I had no idea who Tony Stewart was. I never followed circle track. I was looking up all his accolades to see what he has done and accomplished when I decided I was going to start driving for him. He’s genuinely a good dude. Those are hard to find nowadays. I’m not just saying that because he’s, my boss. He could fire me tomorrow, and I would say it again. He’s the type of guy you want to win for, and then you want to drink a beer with afterwards.”

Hagan has won multiple events in 11 consecutive seasons. That’s the longest active streak in the series, and it ties him with Robert Hight and retired Pro Stock driver Warren Johnson for the third-longest in NHRA history. The only drivers who have earned multiple victories in more consecutive seasons are John Force (18 seasons from 1990-2007) and Greg Anderson (12 seasons from 2001-2012).

“The parts and pieces they have provided over here at TSR and my crew chief Dickie Venables, there is not a weekend that this guy doesn’t impress me in some way, shape or form,” Hagan said. “He’s the type of guy you want to finish your career with. It has been nothing but glorious the whole time. We’ve always been in the Countdown, and we have always had an opportunity to win a championship every year and those are tough to get. A lot of people go their entire career and don’t get an opportunity to do that.”

Hagan qualified No. 3 with a 3.936-second time and then won his first and second quad, and then was victorious in his final round quad.

“To start the season off this hot and win three of the four races is pretty awesome,” Hagan said. “I have won a couple of races starting off, back-to-back and stuff, and you have to stay humble. I’m still really proud of my guys and I think we are still going to test (Monday) and bring out our old car and make some runs and make sure it is ready to go. You have seen the chaos and all that stuff that is going on with these other guys like J.R. (Todd) and (John) Force. You have to bring other cars out.

“We want to make sure that doesn’t bite us and make some runs. I don’t think I’m going to get to drink too much (Sunday night), but I’m going to make sure Tony Stewart drinks a few beers tonight. It has just been really special to do that today with him. As cool as it is to be here with Tony, it is cool for my guys. Those are the guys who put in the grit and put in the work. They are a H*ll of a group and they are putting a hell of a race car underneath me.”

Hagan has a glossy 12-1 elimination round record this season. His only loss was in second round against Green in Phoenix.

“What’s kind of wild is when I was running at DSR (Don Schumacher Racing), Dickie is an innovator,” Hagan said. “The year I won the championship, the last one in 2020, we had the opportunity to have a chassis that was like no other. We had a huge performance advantage that Dickie figured out. A lot of crew chiefs we were working with laughed at him. They were saying that will not work. Go ahead and try it. I feel like we had five hundredths on guys. At DSR, you don’t get to hold onto that information.

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“It is really tough when you’re innovating, and you find something, and then you have to pass it along to three other teammates and different things like that. I think it was very frustrating for Dickie, and then coming over here to TSR, it was like his first opportunity to put a stamp on what he wanted to do, and he knew no one else was going to have that information. Tony also provides us with pretty much the green light to do whatever we want as long as it is within the rules.”

Hagan hasn’t had the best results in Four-Wide races in his career, and there was no secret formula to his win Sunday.

“Luck,” said Hagan about what changed this weekend. “I would like to sit here and say it was me or something, but it is not. I’ve done everything in the Four-Wide, from not staging the car like (Shawn) Langdon did today and red lighting and not knowing which lane I’m in. So, you have to dummy it down up there. My crew chief does a really good job of stepping his foot in the beams, and I look at the bulb. As he turns a screw, he tells me I’m in lane three.

“What is crazy in round two today is Force turned the top bulb off, and that distracts you whether you like it or not. You look over and you’re coming back, and the tree is falling. When stuff like that happens, it makes you get out of character. I think that anybody who says they have the Four-Wide figured out is probably full of sh*t. That’s my opinion. You get lucky out here. You do a good job, and you try to dummy it down to make sure you figure it out and what you’re doing. There is a lot that goes into it.”

As good as Hagan has been to start the 2023 campaign, he knows it is how you finish that matters most.

“I think what we need to work on as a team is just a hot weather tune-up,” he said. “You look at Robert Hight last year; they never fell off throughout the season. We always run really well during the beginning of the season and the Countdown, and I think that’s why we are always in the hunt. I think the difference this year is the innovation that Dickie has made with the chassis, and it has a lot better grip. When we get to those hot weather racetracks and those tricky racetracks, we need to be able to win those races in the middle of summer and the Western Swing.

“That’s really my main focus. I know we have been talking about it as team for a while. Even if we have to drag it across there to Indy when it gets nasty and greasy. We need to have a tune-up that we can run 3.95 to 4.05 and go down a dirt road.”