Hagan hangs on to No. 2 in rain-shortened Norwalk qualifying

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2010 NHRA FULL THROTTLE DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 13 of 23
Fourth annual NHRA Nationals
Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park
Norwalk, Ohio
June 25-27, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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

HAGAN HANGS ON TO NO. 2 IN RAIN-SHORTENED NORWALK QUALIFYING

NORWALK, Ohio (June 26, 2010) - Matt Hagan drove the DieHard Dodge Charger
Funny Car into No. 2 in qualifying for the fourth annual NHRA Nationals in
Norwalk, Ohio, posting his quickest pass of 4.043 seconds at 307.09 mph
under the lights in the cooler Friday night session.

His other laps included a 4.169/294.43 (No. 1) earlier on Friday, and a
tire-smoking 5.445/132.75 (No. 2) in Saturday's third round. Hagan wasn't
able to run the final session, as it was cancelled because of rain after
only seven cars made it down the track before the shower hit.

He will face Jeff Arend in the opening round of Sunday's eliminations. It
will be their seventh head-to-head match-up of the year (6-0).

"The three rounds that we ran we went down the race track in all of them but
one," said Hagan. "We were trying some stuff that last run. And (crew chief)
Tommy (DeLago) kind of expected it to smoke the tires. So, I feel like he's
got a pretty good handle on it.

"This tune-up has been 100 percent Tommy DeLago," added Hagan, whose former
co-crew chief John Medlen was re-assigned to the NAPA AUTO PARTS car this
week. "We went out there and ran an .04. Tommy just proved that he deserved
to be here. He's got the car tuned up and running good and I am really proud
of him.

"It's like, how many times can you roll the dice and still come out ahead?"
he said of his first-round face-off with Arend. "I know Tommy has a pretty
good idea of what he wants to do tomorrow. We're just going to try to be
confident when we go up there and make sure that we do everything we need to
do to get down this race track. We don't know what the weather is going to
be like. They're saying maybe rain, maybe sunshine. It's going to drive
these crew chiefs crazy tomorrow.

"For me personally, I think I'll just kind of keep the same mind set: go
back and hit the Christmas Tree tonight and get tuned up to meet Jeff Arend
tomorrow."

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