NHRA

Joliet: Matt Hagan final report

HAGAN "TREED" BY HIGHT IN JOLIET FIRST ROUND JOLIET, Ill. (June 7, 2009) - Driving the FRAM Tough Guard Funny Car, No. 8 qualifier Matt Hagan was stunned by No. 9 Robert Hight's almost-a-red-light .014 reaction time (.000 is perfect) against him ...

Published: Oct 2, 2009, 4:48 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

HAGAN "TREED" BY HIGHT IN JOLIET FIRST ROUND

JOLIET, Ill. (June 7, 2009) - Driving the FRAM Tough Guard Funny Car, No. 8 qualifier Matt Hagan was stunned by No. 9 Robert Hight's almost-a-red-light .014 reaction time (.000 is perfect) against him in the first round of Funny Car eliminations today at the NHRA Route 66 Nationals at Route 66 Raceway.

That and Hight's 4.111-second elapsed time at 303.84 mph was enough to defeat Hagan's weekend-best but losing 4.126/301.27 (.094 reaction time). Hagan maintains No. 7 in the point standings.

"If he did that on purpose, then I'd like to shake his hand," Hagan said with disbelief. "Obviously, congratulations to Robert on that run. I feel like we have a really great car and it's really, really upsetting to lose the ones that are close like that, especially in the first round.

"He took a stab at the light and it turned out to his favor. (Crew chief) Tommy (DeLago) and everyone on this team did what we were supposed to do up there and we just got beat.

"I don't think we could have done anything differently," added Hagan, a Rookie-of-the-Year frontrunner. "Tommy had the car go down the track and we ran a really good number. We ran the best number of the weekend and I had the best light I had all weekend. I've been trying to take stabs at the tree during qualifying. It's one of those things where you just try really hard and it doesn't come out in your favor.

"So, we're heading to Englishtown. I know we're still going to have a very competitive car; we just have to catch a couple of breaks along the way."

Next up is the NHRA Supernationals in Englishtown, N.J., June 12-14.

-credit: dsr

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Istanbul: Trident Racing race two report

Next article Pocono: Matt Kenseth race report

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Steve O'Donnell touts growth, acknowledges challenges in State of NASCAR presser

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

22 min

Steve O'Donnell touts growth, acknowledges challenges in State of NASCAR presser

"We failed so we had to react" - Fred Vasseur on Ferrari driver talks and Mexico F1 fallout

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

36 min

"We failed so we had to react" - Fred Vasseur on Ferrari driver talks and Mexico F1 fallout

F1 Brazilian GP: Kimi Antonelli sets early FP2 pace

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

43 min

F1 Brazilian GP: Kimi Antonelli sets early FP2 pace

Pedro Acosta on shock Friday failure in Qatar: 'It can't get worse than this'

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Qatar GP

55 min

Pedro Acosta on shock Friday failure in Qatar: 'It can't get worse than this'

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts