Tony Stewart & Matt Hagan
Dodge Direct Connection Top Fuel & Funny Car Drivers
NHRA Northwest Nationals
July 19-21 | Kent, Washington
Event Recap
Tony Stewart, driver of the TSR Dodge//SRT Direct Connection Top Fuel Dragster:
- Earned No. 13 provisional qualifying position in Q1 on Friday (10.895 ET at 77.09 mph)
- Earned No. 10 provisional qualifying position in Q2 on Friday (3.778 ET at 319.90 mph)
- Maintained No. 10 provisional qualifying position based off of Friday’s Q2 run. In Q3 on Saturday, Stewart ran a 3.898 ET at 311.56 mph.
- Scored one bonus point for being the third-quickest car of the session
- Secured No. 10 qualifying position based off of Friday’s Q2 run. In Q4 on Saturday, Stewart ran a 4.128 ET at 226.81 mph.
- Eliminated following Round 1 on Sunday:
- Round 1: 8.907 ET at 84.70 mph, lost to Jasmine Salinas (3.777 ET at 330.31 mph)
- Currently ninth in the Top Fuel championship standings, 407 points behind Top Fuel leader Doug Kalitta
Matt Hagan, driver of the TSR Direct Connection Dodge//SRT Hellcat Funny Car:
- Earned No. 5 provisional qualifying position in Q1 on Friday (4.055 ET at 312.42 mph)
- Fell to No. 6 provisional qualifying position based off of Friday’s Q1 run. In Q2 on Friday, Hagan ran a 4.292 ET at 211.00 mph.
- Maintained No. 6 provisional qualifying position based off of Friday’s Q1 run. In Q3 on Saturday, Hagan ran a 4.107 ET at 295.34 mph. Q3 was also part of the NHRA’s Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge, where Hagan faced Ron Capps. Capps defeated Hagan with his run of 4.028 ET at 315.64 mph.
- Secured No. 6 qualifying position in Q4 on Saturday (4.018 ET at 318.32 mph)
- Advanced to Round 2 on Sunday:
- Round 1: 3.891 ET at 327.43 mph, defeated Dave Richards (no time)
- Round 2: 7.375 ET at 110.96 mph, lost to Paul Lee (3.923 ET at 324.12 mph)
- Currently tied with Tasca III in second in the Funny Car championship standings, 256 points behind Funny Car leader Austin Prock
Notes of Interest
- Hagan participated in his seventh Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge of the season, with his previous challenges taking place at the NHRA Arizona Nationals, NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in Charlotte, Route 66 Nationals in Chicago, the NHRA New England Nationals in Epping and New Hampshire, the PlayNHRA Virginia Nationals in North Dinwiddie, Virginia and the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio.
- Stewart competed in his first motorsports event in the Seattle region.
- Stewart’s Q3 run of 3.898 ET at 311.56 mph was the quickest run in the left lane.
- Stewart maintained his points position following this weekend’s NHRA Northwest Nationals.
- There are three races remaining before the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series’ Countdown to the Championship begins.
Tony Stewart, Driver of the TSR Dodge//SRT Direct Connection Top Fuel Dragster
“Today obviously didn’t go according to plan. We’ve been working on our hot weather combinations and the car wasn’t happy today. We are going to re-group and look ahead to Sonoma. That’s one of my favorite tracks, so hoping we can conquer both the road course and the drag strip.”
Matt Hagan, Driver of the TSR Direct Connection Dodge//SRT Hellcat Funny Car
“We’ve been trying some different things in the heat. It’s obviously not the weekend that we wanted. Sometimes, you have to try some things and if they don’t work, you go back to what you know. You always have to try and grow and adapt and evolve, but you have a baseline you can go back to. I feel good moving into Sonoma because we have a good baseline there and can go back to a combination that we’ve used there for years. We’re going to plug and play. We’re still where we need to be because we’re keeping it on all eight cylinders. We’ll keep digging.”
Next Up
The next event on the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series schedule is the DENSO NHRA Sonoma Nationals July 26-28 at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway. The event serves as the second and final stop in the NHRA’s Western Swing.
-TSR-
