Hagan claims his first Funny Car provisional pole in Sonoma

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2009 NHRA FULL THROTTLE DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 15 of 24
FRAM-Autolite NHRA Nationals
Infineon Raceway
Sonoma, Calif.
July 24-26, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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

HAGAN CLAIMS HIS FIRST FUNNY CAR PROVISIONAL POLE POSITION IN SONOMA

SONOMA,Calif. (July 24, 2009) - NHRA Rookie Matt Hagan grabbed the
provisional Funny Car pole position in the second round of qualifying for
the FRAM-Autolite Nationals, driving the shelor.com Dodge.

Under near perfect conditions on a stellar track surface, Hagan pulled out a
steady, straight run of 4.068 seconds at a top speed 307.51 mph, the
quickest and fastest run of his career, to claim his first provisional No.
1. In todayıs first pass, he was No. 4 with a 4.213/287.78.

Two more rounds of qualifying on Saturday will determine the 16-car field
for Sunday's eliminations.

"It was just a great run at this great track," said the 26-year-old Angus
Cattle farmer from Christiansburg, Va. "These fans out here got a great show
today, with cars going down the race track. We're excited to do that. Don
Schumacher puts all the right stuff underneath us to make us go out there
and do that. 

"And it says a lot for our team, being a rookie team and being able to come
out here and do that, in just great weather conditions. It was just
something that needed to come together for us, for our morale, for our team.
We've been kind of in a little bit of a slump right now and that really gets
the guys' heads up and it really puts them in a positive attitude out here."

As for the strong head winds tonight, "It goes to show [how good] our R&D
program [is]. Don Schumacher is...putting in a lot of money into our R&D,
and even with that strong head wind out here, as you noticed, a lot of these
Schumacher cars are running strong. And it just goes to show you what we can
do with the right program and just a little bit of luck out there.

"It set me back in the seat and started sparking the flywheel real hard out
there and I was, like, Whoa, what's that? and then the clutch went one to
one and it felt like it took off again. I knew it was on a killer run. I was
just trying to keep up with the car out there, it's dark a little bit, so [I
was] trying to keep it in the groove and make sure I didn't drive it out of
there and smoke the tires and let everybody down.

"A little nerve-wracking not knowing what to do when it's sparking that bad
inside and I said, Well, I'm just going to keep my foot in it. I'll say
'sorry' later if I did something wrong. It was a good deal."

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