Following his fourth NHRA championship and first with Tony Stewart Racing last season, Matt Hagan and his TSR Funny Car team had a target on their backs heading into 2024.
On the strength of six victories and two runner-up efforts during his title campaign, Hagan was the nitro-burning category’s top driver for good reason.
However, this year was a different story.
Between the emergence of first-year Funny Car driver Austin Prock and the masterful work of his family of tuners, Jimmy and Thomas Prock, the John Force Racing team ran away with the championship after notching eight wins and a whopping 15 No. 1 qualifier efforts.
Following the season finale at the In-N-Out Burger Pomona (Calif.) Dragstrip, Prock’s closest competitor was a distant 166 points behind (John Force/Jack Beckman).
Hagan completed the season fourth in the title hunt, 298 markers behind the “Prock Rocket.”
Hagan stated he and TSR simply, “Got out-worked this year.”
“We won the championship last year. I’ll say it as much as anybody… we rested on our laurels,” Hagan said.
“The rules are so tough that it’s hard to do a whole lot of innovation just because you’re not allowed to touch much of this stuff. But at the end of the day, you have to tip your cap to Prock and those guys over there. They’ve found some stuff that we obviously don’t have and same with the other teams.
“Like, they’ve won eight races, they’ve been 13-14 number one qualifiers. You have to go, ‘Hey man, you guys worked a little harder than we did.’ So, I think it’s definitely a momentum boost to say, ‘Hey, we got to get back to the grindstone.’”
Going back to the drawing board could be the spark Hagan and TSR need to reignite their title hopes next season.
With NASCAR Hall of Famer and NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series rookie of the year Tony Stewart at the helm of the nitro-bellowing operation, Hagan pointed to Stewart’s racer mentality helping the team move forward.
“What we got is not going to cut it,” Hagan said. “We have to work behind the scenes. What’s really cool about having Tony Stewart as a boss is that he OKs all that. He’s like, ‘Whatever it takes to win.’ That’s why we were testing Monday in Vegas. We had two big blow ups.
“Tony blew up and then I blew up. It was a really costly weekend for Tony. We were kind of like, ‘Well, should we test? Should we not?’
“Because every time it costs $7,000 to make a run. Tony was like, ‘Absolutely test.’ He’s like, ‘Whatever it takes to go faster, that’s what we’re here for. That’s what we’re going to do.”
From a confidence standpoint, having Stewart as a boss is the ultimate booster for Hagan with both fiery competitors bringing the most out of each other on a daily basis.
“To have a boss like that that is driven and motivated, that has a desire to win and as a competitor himself, it’s just nice,” Hagan said. “I wouldn’t say money is not an option. It just… if it’s devoted and used toward the right resources and to improve and to go faster, he’s always on board and so that means a lot to me.
“That means that I know that over the offseason, anything that these guys want to do, as far as getting back to the grind and figuring out how we can go faster and what we can do and how we can massage on our stuff, we’re going to do.”
While the season was a monumental one for Hagan on a personal level as he reached 50 career Funny Car victories during the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway in Concord, N.C., Hagan is eager to bounce back and make a run at dethroning Prock and JFR.
“We obviously didn’t get it done this year. It’s great to be in the hunt and have a chance to do it, but that still ain’t getting it done,” Hagan lamented. “I know that we’re going to go back and work hard.
“I believe in my guys and I believe in the parts and pieces and all the stuff that Dodge does for us.
“We just got to go back and work harder.”