Sometimes – for whatever reason – stars align.

Everything that can go right – does go right.

That was definitely the case for Matt Hagan this weekend at the final Mile-High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway in Morrison, Colo., just outside of Denver.

Hagan, in his Tony Stewart Racing Dodge Direct Connect Charger SRT Hellcat, qualified No. 1, won the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Funny Car challenge on Saturday and then blasted through the competition culminating with him defeating Alexis DeJoria in the final round Sunday at his sponsor Dodge’s race.

Hagan clocked a 4.13-second time at 304.25 mph to edge DeJoria’s 4.217-second lap 251.34 mph.

“I guess I need to go buy a lottery ticket, honestly. It's just one of those weekends that it's magical and so super special, super emotional,” Hagan said. “Man, I don't even know how to really put it in the words. I've been up here close to 15 years racing a fuel Funny Car and to think that you're not going to come back here, but to walk away here with a Wally and an extra special trophy from the Bandimere family that they give to the winners. To have the 2Fast2Tasty Challenge (win) and the No. 1 qualifier, my number 50th. I just had so many milestones and things to remember (from this weekend). It also was my mom's birthday weekend and she passed six months ago, so I don't know how it all wraps up into one, but it sure did today and such a special weekend.”

This was his 47th career nitro Funny Car win and fourth this season. Hagan also has three world championships on his resume in 2011, 2014 and 2020. With his Denver win, Hagan stayed in the points lead – 45 points in front of back-to-back reigning world champ Ron Capps.

“I've been out here since Tuesday doing ride and drives with Dodge and just entertaining some of their folks and stuff,” Hagan said. “I told myself, just take it all in, man, because this is the last one. It's just so special. Like I said, it's hard to put into words, but the Funny Car category is tough, man. You know what I mean? It's a dogfight and there's no easy draws or easy rounds. And up here you're fighting, the cylinder's going out every run. I don't know that anybody really made a full run up here with eight cylinders. If they did, hats off to them because we sure didn't. It's one of those things where you have your hands full out there every run.

“It was cool to feel like you got to earn your money a little bit, driving the fuel Funny Car. But that's why you want to do it because you love it. It's kind of like getting on a bull. You don't know how it's going to come out of the (chute), you know what I mean? So, it's always exciting.”

In the finals against DeJoria, Hagan wasn’t taking anything for granted.

“I have a lot of respect for her as a driver,” Hagan said. “She's hit the wall and crawled back in that thing and been on fire and crawled back in that thing. I've got nothing but respect for her. And Del Worsham, her crew chief. We used to race against each other and that's one of the best drivers I know. Probably him and Tony Pedregon are the two most that I have respect for as far as drivers go out there. They're just willing it; you know what I mean? Then Del’s a great tuner as well. It was really tip of a cap. Del came over after we were the No. 1 qualifier and he's like, ‘Hey man, your crew did a great job and everything.’ He said, ‘but you drove you’re a** off.’ I was like, ‘Man, that means a lot to me.”

“I have a lot of respect for that whole team. I was pumped up for the final and I knew we were probably going to put some cylinders out and it's one of those things that you got to leg it out. You have a chance of blowing bodies up there, but I was like, we're in the finals and if we launch a body off it, so be it. You know what I mean? But it stayed together. Dickie Venables (Hagan’s crew chief) is an animal, man. I love him to death. He's one of those guys that was just so methodical, and he's always put a great race car underneath me. It's unbelievable to be able to crawl in a race car every Sunday and know you can win. It's not like, I hope we can win, or I think we got a chance at this. It's like, I know if I leave on time and keep it in the groove, that we got a real good shot at winning this thing. We've had a crew that's pretty much been together for 11 years and I think that's why it speaks with our win record on the racetrack because we've been able to keep everybody together so long and that's hard 
to find out here.”

Hagan also was thrilled to give Dodge a win at the final Mile-High Nationals at the Morrison, Colo., facility outside of Denver.

“For Dodge and SRT and this whole deal that we've been supporting this thing out here in Bandimere for so long, for such a long running sponsorship, I just can't say thank you to them enough to be able to have a place to come up here and have so many Dodge enthusiasts, so many fans,” Hagan said. “It was cool. I don't know, maybe it's because I won in Pomona a lot and it's (John) Force’s track, but we came back down through here and everybody was cheering and clapping and a lot of times in Pomona they're booing at me. You know what I mean? So, I was like, ‘Oh, we got fans up here.’ It really was exciting to do a burnout and to back up and just cut your eyes over there at those stands and just see everybody packed in there all three days. Like Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It's just amazing and something I'll definitely remember 'till the end of my days.”

Hagan’s victory march consisted of wins over Chris King, a bye run in second round, a win over Capps on a holeshot, and then DeJoria. The crazy thing is thing is the first time Hagan won the Mile-High Nationals in 2021 he followed the exact same racing script on Sunday beating the same opponents and having a bye in second round.

“It's magical. It was one of those weekends where you're just going... You wake up some mornings and you're like, ‘Man, it just feels right,’” Hagan said. Some mornings I'm like, ‘I can't pick my nose right.’ It's just like this was one of those mornings where it just felt right and we have a great combination up here, but we had to be lucky too. With cylinders out and everything else, we set ourselves up in qualifying to have that bye run. Yeah, super magical, really odd. I'm definitely going to go buy a Powerball ticket now.”

Back on April 21, NHRA and the Bandimere family jointly announced the 2023 Dodge Power Brokers NHRA Mile-High Nationals on at Bandimere Speedway would be the last NHRA national event at the historic track.  

First opened in 1958, the Bandimere family has agreed to sell the current property and land, with the 2023 racing season marking the end of drag racing at the facility. 

And Hagan and DeJoria were the last pair down the track, and he walked away with the historical win, a Wally and specially made John Bandimere trophy.

“I don't think it's really set in,” Hagan said. “That’s the type of stuff you process when you get home and just think about the weekend and what you've done and what you've accomplished. It's just overwhelming right now to think about, that we're walking away with the last trophy, and we were at a Dodge sponsored race with a Dodge sponsored car and just how incredibly cool is that? Stuff like that doesn't usually work out. We were able to make it work. You go home and you process that, and you look at that trophy and know that that's the very last one. It's incredible.”