Matt Hagan Chases Fifth NHRA Funny Car Championship With A Farmer’s Mentality

Matt Hagan takes in a panoramic sweep of his 3,000-acre property in the rippling hills of Southwestern Virginia, with the Shenandoah Mountains keeping watch to the north and east. It’s peaceful. About the only noise is the occasional lowing of his 1,800 head of black Angus cattle or a Norfolk Southern freight train trundling through its New River Valley channel.

The silence is a blessing, perhaps paradoxically, a blessing from his other true blessing: the ear-splitting song of a 12,000-horsepower Funny Car engine and the thunderous blast as it launches down an NHRA dragstrip at more than 335 mph.

Hagan, equally comfortable in overalls or a racing firesuit, is a first-generation farmer and a first-generation drag racer. Now he wants to be the first in the class since the iconic John Force to earn five titles. And he has a prime opportunity starting as the points leader in the 2026 Countdown to the Championship.

He’s fresh off his regular-season championship performance at the U.S. Nationals that was worth $150,000, generous by sanctioning-body standards but only half the cost of fertilizer alone for one planting season of corn, rye, wheat, and hay on the farm back home.

The 58-time winner will lead the Funny Car field into the Great Lakes Nationals that will open the six-race Countdown. He knows the chase will be challenging, with savvy Ron Capps trying to regain his supremacy for a fourth championship and surging Austin Prock aiming for a third consecutive title despite a rough start to the season.

“This Funny Car field is one of the toughest I’ve ever seen,” he said.

But Hagan said he has faith in his crew and believes that if he scores three Countdown victories to match his three from the regular season, Winternationals, Bristol, and Brainerd, he can claim another championship.

“I just can’t say enough about my guys. Mike Knudsen, Alex Conaway, and Phil Shuler, that group has been great, and Tony Stewart allowed that to happen, put them together, and made sure we have what we need, parts and pieces. This Dodge Hellcat Funny Car is on a tear right now,” he said. “It’s my group of guys, all this goes to them. This just isn’t possible without our group. I’m just very thankful, blessed, and all greatness comes from God through Jesus Christ.

“I think everyone is seeing that this Dodge//SRT Hellcat has to be something to deal with in the final six races. We just need to keep doing what we have been doing in the last few races. We won at Brainerd and runner-up here. If we can win three of the six races in the Countdown, we can take another title. And this TSR [Tony Stewart Racing Nitro] Dodge team is very capable of it,” Hagan said.

However, Hagan has learned to take nothing for granted.

“I watched it unfold in front of my eyes in 2010, when I just had to show up and go two rounds, and I won my first championship second year driving the car,” Hagan said. “And I lost the first round, and John [Force] had to win the race. And John went out there round by round and won the race. And my only shot and hope and prayer was my teammate [Jack] Beckman, and I think he got beat on a holeshot. So it didn’t work out great for me. It wasn’t meant to be that day. We were favored to win the championship in 2010, and we didn’t. So I always go in there with that mentality of anything can happen, and it’s not over until it’s over.”

He couldn’t stop Prock last year from recording a second straight championship but regarded himself as “just very blessed and very humbled to have an opportunity to win it coming into the last race.”

Bitterly disappointed in 2010, Hagan has matured and adjusted to the rhythm of winning and losing in drag racing.

“It taught me a lot as a young man early on in the sport. I was totally dejected, and I didn’t want a camera in my face, and I wanted to be left alone. And they didn’t respect that side of it as far as the TV goes. They wanted a reaction, and they got one. It just wasn’t a great one. So I learned a lot as a man. I learned a lot as a person, as a competitor. Win or lose, you give an interview, and you say what you got to say and you thank the people you need to thank, and then you watch it unfold,” he said.

“At the time, I was still very, very young and wet behind the ears and had a lot of learning to do. And we’ve done that along the way and won several other championships along the way. I just know that anything can happen, and that’s why we show up and race ’em on Sunday. And I’m always blessed to have the chance.

“I just enjoy the process now. It used to be super-pressure-filled and just all that kind of stuff, and I worried about this and worried about that. And I’ve realized over the years I can only control so much,” he said. “And as long as I do a good job behind the wheel and do my part, that’s all you can do. I always call myself an old plow horse. Hook me up to the plow, and I’ll just go out there and get the job done. I’m not pretty like Leah [Top Fuel teammate Pruett] or famous like Tony [boss Stewart], but at the end of the day, the field’s plowed,” Hagan said.

Also, as a farmer, Hagan has learned to focus on what he can control. That occupation is beset with sometimes-nasty weather, possible political or cultural setbacks, and unfavorable corporate trends. Racing is often unpredictable. So are farming and ranching. But he has powered through whatever has been sent his way.

And this season, with his life lessons learned, the parity in the Funny Car class should work in his favor.

“I love seeing the diversity that we’ve had this year,” he said, referring to the fact that seven different Funny Car drivers earned NHRA 75th Anniversary diamond Wally trophies in the 14-race regular season. “It’s always exciting when everybody’s chasing these diamonds, man. You want to see everybody get them. I just want to get a few more than everybody else.”

“When you have one guy dominating, people go up there and make mistakes,” Hagan said. “They try to do things that they shouldn’t. The biggest thing I think I’ve learned, with championships and dealing with pressure, is you got to let it come to you, because I think a lot of people don’t deal with pressure well. No one does. When you go up there trying to make things happen, you force the issue, and then you make mistakes. You just have to keep doing what you’ve done to get yourself in that position and allow it to come to you. That’s some of the best advice I got early on in my career, don’t chase it away from yourself. Let it come to you. So, as things happen and you get one guy dominating, people go up there trying to push too hard, and then they beat themselves, and then that person keeps dominating.”

Hagan has dominated his own career paths.

He was the first in his family to race. Father David owns 11 car dealerships throughout the region. That guaranteed-job opportunity wasn’t for him, but his dad’s networking help landed him some local sponsors, who introduced him to automaker representatives and others in the business world. Hagan began driving his own Pro Mod entry in the NHRA in 2006 before Don Schumacher shepherded him into the NHRA nitro ranks.

And, uncommon in the farming community, where precious land is passed down from generation to generation, Hagan is the lone person in his family to farm. And to hear him tell it, his addictive personality fuels both his home life and racing life.

“I went and bought some land and put a house on it. And it’s quite a bit of acreage. I’m like, ‘I’m not mowing this every day. So let’s build a few fences and put some cows out here,’” Hagan said. “The next thing you know, you’re doing it. And if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it full-scale. If I’m going to buy tractors, let’s buy some big tractors. If I’m going to get some cows, let’s get a lot of cows. If you have an addictive personality, you do everything you do wholeheartedly. That’s similar to racing. It’s hard to turn it on and turn it off.

“You come out (to the racetrack), and you have to turn it on, and you have to turn (the other) things off. It’s taken me a while to learn to do that. But I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on it. When I get back home, it’s wide open: Pull your boots on and cow shit everywhere and let’s go,” he said. “A lot of times you get off a plane and get on a tractor, and it’s 1:30 in the morning, and you’re still cutting hay.”

What’s more, Hagan has taken on other business ventures: Hagan Cattle Company, TruHarvest Farms, which produces hemp-derived products, and a Western store that has since closed. And the serial entrepreneur, the addictive entrepreneur, has added an entertainment element to his at-the-track repertoire: outrageously funny costumes to show drag racers have style.

“That’s just me having fun with it. Obviously, I don’t have those clothes hanging in my closet. I’ve spent a lot of money on Amazon this year, but it’s just having fun,” Hagan said. “I’ve accomplished everything I’ve ever dreamed of in the sport, and I’ve won [58] races now. You get to a point in your life where you ain’t got nothing to prove to nobody, so you might as well just have fun. I love it. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m having fun with it, and stuff that I normally wouldn’t wear, I’m putting on. I really don’t care [what anyone says]. It’s like, man, this is fun to do. It’s something that our sport, I feel like, needs. They do a game-day fit in a lot of other professional sports where the athletes come in, and that’s what they’re wearing to start the game day.

“They come in, and they feel good about themselves. It creates some chemistry and charisma, and you wouldn’t believe the amount of people that come up to me, and they’re going like, ‘What’s the fit this week? Can’t wait to see it. That’s what we pull up Facebook for every Sunday. We’re checking out what you’re going to wear and what it’s going to be.’ So it’s just unbelievable the amount of engagement that I’ve had off of wearing crazy get-ups for Sunday morning. So it’s been really cool. It’s been fun to see. Some people are like, ‘Oh man, you should be in a cowboy hat and boots and cow shit on your boots.’ But it’s just like, ‘Well, that’s what everybody expects, so why would you do that?’ It’s been really fun to step outside of the box, get outside of my comfort zone, and just have fun. It’s silly. I mean, anybody who thinks all that’s hanging in my closet is foolish. My Amazon orders have been foolish this year, so it’s been fun to see.”

Matt Hagan has been a racer and a farmer for a long time now, and he’s showing no signs of dialing back on either front. And that’s his compulsion, his passion, his difficult-to-define passion.

“It’s hard to explain to somebody, when you put that mouthpiece in and pull that helmet on, the rush that you get when you see that win light come on at the other end of the racetrack. I can’t put it in words,” Hagan said. “I’m very passionate about it, and it would be hard to walk away from. It’s what makes you whole. It’s an addiction, really. It’s pure addiction. You can’t get that fix anywhere else.”

Winning only intensifies it.