Consistency places Hagan in No. 3 in Seattle qualifying

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2209 NHRA FULL THROTTLE DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 14 of 24
NHRA NORTHWEST NATIONALS
Pacific Raceways
Kent, Wash.
July 17-19, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Judy Stropus, 203-438-0501; cell 203-243-2438;
jstropus@earthlink.net

CONSISTENCY PLACES HAGAN IN NO. 3 IN SEATTLE QUALIFYING

KENT, Wash. (July 18, 2009) - Matt Hagan drove the shelor.com Dodge Funny
Car into No. 3 in qualifying for the NHRA Northwest Nationals, in his first
visit to Pacific Raceways, the 14th round of 24 in the 2009 NHRA Full
Throttle Drag Racing Series.

Posting three out of four consistent passes, missing one because of an early
deployment of the parachutes at the starting line in Friday's second round,
NHRA rookie-of-the-year contender Hagan's best lap of 4.216 seconds at
286.32 mph was the second quickest of today's third session and good for No.
2 at the end of that round. He followed that with another stout 4.235/286.25
in his final attempt, which was the third quickest of the round. Hagan held
the No. 2 spot until Mike Neff pulled out a matching 4.216-second run at
290.26 mph in the final session to move around him because of speed.

His initial Friday run produced a 4.312/276.18 for third place at the time.

"You know what, I'm really happy right now," said the 26-year-old Angus
Cattle farmer from Christiansburg, Va. "I've said this before, when we start
qualifying well again we'll do well. We just have to keep it up. To have the
no. 3 spot is awesome. We would have liked to have had held on to that No.
2, but it's drag racing. Sometimes it's up, sometimes its down."

He will face his Don Schumacher Racing teammate Jack Beckman in the opening
round of Sunday's eliminations. "We're really excited about going into first
round tomorrow," he said. "Hate that we have to run Beckman, but as many
cars as there are out here, you're going to run each other a time or two;
that's just part of the deal.

"The shelor.com crew is working hard. They're on their toes, they're
catching stuff here and there, and they're just doing a good job. (Crew
chief) Tommy DeLago is doing a terrific job and I have a lot of confidence
that we'll go down the race track tomorrow."

***