Funny Car Leader Hagan Nice But Not ‘Lovey-Lovey, Kissy-Kissy’

Ptooey.

Matt Hagan says he thinks it’s distasteful and no one will find those fake-nice words in his mouth.

The Funny Car points leader from the Don Schumacher Racing organization said, “I love our teammates. I love the folks we race with away from the racetrack. But when you pull a helmet on, it’s ‘Come and get some.’ You shake their hands, look ’em in the eye, and you say, ‘Better bring it.’ “

It’s hard to say exactly what got into Matt Hagan and why he suddenly has taken this new harder-edge approach to his pursuit of a second series championship in three seasons. But it’s a bit of a bold, new aura surrounding the 30-year-old cattle farmer from Christiansburg, Va.

His new theory, he said, is “You’ve got that mentality of ‘Go up there and punch ’em in the face.’ “

Lest anyone imagine that Hagan was striking a WWE pose and ready to rip off somebody’s head as he spoke those words, he was stating his feelings matter-of-factly. And he was careful to clarify the tome of his remarks.

“That’s not trying to be cocky. It’s being for real,” he said.
   
“That mentality is where it’s at, man,” Hagan said. “You have to have that mentality. You have to have that confidence. It’s not being cocky. It’s just positive reinforcement: You know you can do it. You’ve done it before. You can do it again.”

He said he very nature of drag racing, NHRA-style, fosters the need to think that way. Drivers are pushed to their limits. The cars are pushed to their limits. In eliminations, it’s one shot at advancing. You win or you go home immediately and disappointedly. Drag racing has no second chances, do-overs, mulligans, or consolation brackets. It doesn’t grade on the curve, operate on average times or speeds, or use provisionals. A drag racer earns his achievements.

Hagan said one of his pet peeves in the world of team athletics, particularly with youth and school sports and tournaments, is that everybody receives a trophy. He said the winners should get trophies. Otherwise, the championship trophy doesn’t have that same shine. Drag racing hands out trophies to the winners only, and that suits Hagan fine.

In this straight-line sport that lasts sometimes for less than four seconds and most often for less than five seconds — in cars that gulp generous amounts of nitromethane and carry a driver 1,000 feet at almost 330 mph  and have the power literally to kill on every single run — it’s only natural that passion runs as quick as his Rocky Footwear / Magneti-Marelli Dodge Charger.   

“The fans have to understand this is such an emotional sport,” Hagan said. “There’s no other sport that you can crawl out of a race car after going 300 miles an hour and you get a camera thrown in your face.”

He insinuated that he hasn’t always reacted in a way that reflects the real Matt Hagan .

“There’s a lot of stuff I’d like to have back that I’ve said up there at the top end. I wear it on my sleeve. But you learn from that. You grow from that,” he said.

“I think we need some kids that are full of vinegar out here,” Hagan said, “and are just ready to go, chomping at the bit, wanting to drive the wheels off those cars.

“It’s such an adrenaline-driven sport,” he said. “Everything is on the edge. It’s a razor blade. We walk a razor blade with every lap.”

So he’s an advocate of drivers cutting out the sugar-coated camaraderie, especially the losers gushing about the racers who just beat them. He isn’t suggesting a brawl at the top end of the track, rather simply showing honest emotion.

“I think our sport needs that,” Hagan said. “I’m tired of going up and kissin’ a guy, like, ‘Oh, hey, great — you beat me!’ I’ve got to go back there [to his pit] and face eight guys who are depending on bonus money, round money. Whether it’s my teammate or not, it kills me to pack my stuff up and go home. We’ve been here all week. what’s so great about going home? Nothing. You know what I mean?”

He loves his wife Rachel, children Colby and Penny, and his ranch. He just meant he doesn’t want to go home before he wins a race, or go home empty-handed — he wants to take a Wally trophy with him.

When he loses, he’s upset. And he said he sees no need to pretend otherwise.

Whether it’s my teammate or not, it kills me to pack my stuff up and go home. We’ve been here all week. what’s so great about going home?

“There’s too much lovey-lovey out here,” Hagan said, perturbed with this role that has evolved for drag racers, a role he doesn’t want to play.

“There’s more girls than there are guys out here racing,” he said, “so there’s way too much lovey-dovey for me. Man, it just seems too kissy-kissy around here. I don’t know — maybe I’m off-pace here.”

Don’t expect him to conform, he indicated.

“It is what it is with me,” Hagan said. “When I pull that helmet on, it’s ‘Come get you some.’ I feel like our team has that mentality. I like that. I think our sport needs that.

“It’s nothing that’s fake,” he said. “People need to be real. And that’s all I’m trying to be out here. What you see is what you get with me.”

Although Hagan said of his competitors, “It truly puts a smile on my heart to put these boys on the trailer,” he said he doesn’t mean that in an offensive way.

“I understand you have to be respectful, and there’s so much respect there,” he said. “It’s nothing about being disrespectful. It’s about being aggressive, being motivated, and being driven to win. I struggle with it like anybody that’s a competitor, to lose well. And I know it’s a character deal.”

Character is something that definitely matters to Hagan. Being a person of strong character has been a trait associated with Hagan. His faith is important to him, and he shared a bit of it with reporters during the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis, where he was the No. 1 qualifier.

“Not to go all religious on you or anything,” Hagan said, “but it shows you how good God is. Last year He took it all away from us. He was like, ‘Look, here’s some humble pie.’ And this year, He’s letting us reap it all back. So it’s good, man. Everything happens for a reason.” He said he’s “definitely appreciating these round-wins and qualifying positions a lot more this year than I probably did in the past.”

His team — one that came together with him meeting crew chief Dickie Venables just before the start of the season — is one major blessing to him in this outstanding season.

“I’ve been beside myself the majority of the year [about] just how good these guys are and how good they work together. And Dickie, he knows how to run good in the cool weather, and then we’re going down hot racetracks.”

He said he racked up a 20-lap stretch in which he hadn’t had to pedal the car. “So that’s phenomenal to me,” Hagan said. “That is not bragging. That’s just facts. But there will be some down times. I think that there are going to be some times when everybody’s human. Dickie’s going to miss it sometimes, and, hopefully, I don’t. But there are going to be times when I walk in the trailer and say, ‘Man, guys, I’m sorry. I messed up.’

“At the end of the day when we get together as a group and talk about what we can do to improve and what we can do to make this car and this team better, as long as we’re growing with it, I think that we have a real, legitimate shot in Pomona to either be leading points or be right there in the dogfight to win this thing,” he said.

His Christian faith doesn’t make him timid when it comes to driving a Funny Car. That’s why he led the field into the Countdown to the Championship and remained No. 1 through the first of six playoff races, at Concord, N.C., near Charlotte.

He characterized his approach as “attack mode all the time.  My lights have been [0.]50s [seconds], 60s, 70s on the tree, shallow. And when you do that and put a good race car underneath it, that’s a hard combination to beat. So I think we’ve been in attack mode from Day One.  I’m in attack mode on the tree in qualifying.  So you can pull up the spreadsheets and look at them.  

“You know it’s no joke,” he said. “We’re coming.  It’s going to be a war, man.”

So don’t expect him to be “lovey-lovey ” or “kissy-kissy.”