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Matt Hagan Reading Friday report

Don Schumacher Racing press release

Edited: Jun 1, 2018, 1:23 PM

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MATT HAGAN GRABS PROVISIONAL POLE AT AUTO-PLUS® NHRA NATIONALS

Matt Hagan signs autographs

Photo by: Action Sports Photography

MOHNTON, Pa., September 30, 2011 – Matt Hagan, aboard his DieHard Advanced Gold Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car, today blasted onto the provisional pole for Sunday’s 27th annual Auto-Plus® NHRA Nationals here at Maple Grove Raceway.

Quickest flopper in both of today’s qualifying runs, the 28-year-old Don Schumacher Racing driver posted a 4.012-second lap at 316.67 miles per hour in the evening session to move ahead of DSR teammates Johnny Gray, 4.023, and Ron Capps, 4.059.

Should he hold onto the position for Sunday’s race, it would be his fourth number-one qualifier of the season, 10th of his career.

“The conditions out there are phenomenal,” said Hagan, who picked up six points in qualifying which puts him into a tie with Mike Neff for the 2011 NHRA Countdown to the Championship standings. “We’re excited about everything which happened today, but there is a long way to go yet in the Countdown.

“Tommy DeLago (crew chief) and my guys are truly phenomenal – to be able to run that quick and fast, you have to have a great race car and no one can make mistakes. That’s the kind of car the DieHard guys have been giving me.”

Hagan, whose 3.995-second lap in Charlotte two weeks ago set the national elapsed-time mark (he also won the race, first of six in the Countdown), ran 4.076 at 308.50 mph in today’s first round.

“This is truly a fast race car,” said the Christiansburg, Va. native who also recorded the fastest 1,000-foot lap in Charlotte at 322.27 mph. “Tommy has good data for Maple Grove and when you combine it with cool weather like we have today, great things can happen.

“It’s a lot easier to get these cars to go faster when the weather cools than it is to slow them down under hot conditions, like we had last week in Dallas. We’re just really excited about how things are going now.”

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