Hagan Leads the DSR Charge into Pomona
Mopar team has confidence stemming from team leader, crew chief Venables as they carry points lead to Pomona for NHRA finale
BROWNSBURG, IN – Calm is not a word that one would typically think of when it comes to a 10,000-horsepower, 300-mph nitro Funny Car.
But that is exactly what Matt Hagan feels when he’s in the Mopar Express Lane/Rocky Boots Dodge Charger R/T with crew chief Dickie Venables leading the team into the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series finale this weekend at Pomona, Calif.
Dickie’s calmness translates into confidence in each crew member and Matt.
“The calmness, it comes from confidence, and the confidence comes from Dickie Venables and knowing that he’s up there making the right calls,” Matt said. “He’s not second guessing anything that he’s doing.
“What Dickie has is confidence and that influences the rest of us. He’s very, very confident about the decisions he makes. He doesn’t second-guess himself. He’s not up there worried about anything. I mean, I worry about it more than he does. You know, it’s just one of those deals where the decisions that he makes, he believes in them, and it trickles down to our team.”
The Mopar Express Lane team carries a 21-point lead over John Force into this weekend’s event at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, where Matt has two career event tittles, including last year’s win over Force at the Finals and two runner-up finishes.
“Pomona has been really good to me,” Matt said. “I’ve been able to win it several times, and I really look forward to getting out there and crawling in this race car. We can talk about it until I’m blue in the face, but when push comes to shove, it’s crawling in the race car and making it happen.”
Matt is no stranger to battling John Force for the championship, the pair have battled it out for the championship four of the last five years. In 2010, Matt finished second to John before earning his first championship the following year. Matt and the Mopar team finished second to John last season as well.
“Me and John have been battling it out the last four years out of the last five of my career, and John has won two, I’ve won one. And I’m planning on winning this one.
“We are still a very, very hungry team. Now it’s going to come down to the wire at Pomona. I think hungry is the word that would best describe my team. I think that we’ve grown together, and we’re driven to go out and get this thing done.”
Matt and John each have three event titles in 2014 and have raced each other seven times this season, with John winning five of those matches.
“I believe in my team, and I know that we’ve got the stuff and what it takes to get it done. We’re going to have a battle on our hands with John, but we’re not racing John, we’re racing the racetrack and we’re racing our race car. As long as we go out there and race as hard as we can and get as much (elapsed time) on that racetrack as we can, it’s going to take care of itself.”
Red Fuel’s Massey has championship chance as he seeks fourth event title of 2014 at NHRA Mello Yello finale at Pomona
– It felt like it had been too long since Spencer Massey visited the winner’s circle on the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour.
Two weeks ago at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Spencer and the Red Fuel Powered by Schumacher Top Fuel team earned their third event title of the season and first since May ending their self-proclaimed slump.
“We went through a really tough stretch of races this summer and got stuck in a slump and now it feels like we are out of that and we’re excited,” Spencer said. “We’ve been working really hard on trying to make good, solid laps, qualify well and trying to go rounds on Sunday. We finally had a weekend in Vegas where we put all of those things together and now we have some momentum going for Pomona, which is always nice.”
Spencer has one event title at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, home of the NHRA season-opening Winternationals and Finals, where the champions from each professional category will be crowned on Nov. 16.
The Red Fuel team led by crew chiefs Phil Shuler and Todd Okuhara are mathematically in the running for the Top Fuel championship, though that’s not the goal for their weekend.
“It’ll be really tough for us to get around Tony (Schumacher) for the championship,” Spencer said of his Don Schumacher Racing teammate who has a 109-point lead that translates to more than four rounds of racing.
“He’d pretty much have to not qualify and we’d have to win the race to get that championship. It’s possible mathematically but that’s not really our goal. Our goal is to win Pomona and let the points fall where they fall.”
The goal is to earn their fourth NHRA event title of the season, something the young Texan has accomplished each season since he joined Don Schumacher Racing in 2011. Don Schumacher Racing’s dragsters of Spencer, Antron Brown and Schumacher have won 14 of 23 events this season and each of the first five in the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoff.
“I can’t wait to get to Pomona. Every year I’ve raced with Don Schumacher Racing, I’ve won four event titles. We are at three right now and we really want to get that fourth.”
3-second run in Las Vegas test gets NAPA team ready for finale
– NAPA AUTO PARTS Funny Car crew chief Rahn Tobler is attacking this weekend’s season finale at Pomona, Calif., like the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series world championship depends on it.
And none are more impressed with his approach than NAPA driver Ron Capps whose narrow loss two weeks ago in the quarterfinals eliminated him from contention for the championship title.
“The part that really stings is losing a close race like we did to Del at Vegas,” Ron said of being edged out of contention by about six-thousandths of a second.
When the team stayed at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Monday for testing, Tobler had decided to make a radical change to the Dodge Charger R/T’s clutch system.
The team’s full runs were stellar: the first at 4.02 seconds at 318 mph and the last at 3.99 at 321.
“A lot of teams stayed to test and it was like another race,” Ron said. “For Tobler to completely go to an innovative clutch setup like we’ll use at Pomona and next season just tells you the NAPA Know How and brainpower we have at DSR. It was great to see all the other Funny Car crew chiefs huddled over Rahn’s computer after those runs Monday.
“It’s encouraging for our DSR Funny Car program for sure.
“I’m excited more so for Pomona than I have been for a long time. We don’t have a chance to win the championship but testing really showed us something that will be really, really good down the road.
“With the conditions we’ll see at Pomona I surely want to go in there and take back the moniker of having the quickest Funny Car after Cruz (Pedregon) took that from us at Englishtown in June. We could see a lot of 3-second runs this weekend.”
Ron will start the AAA Finals ranked seventh in points with two event titles this season but is only 76 points out of third place.
Above all, however, is winning another event title.
“We want to go the banquet (Monday night) with all our guys to support our other teams and there’d be nothing better than going with a little headache from celebrating a win at Pomona. That would be the ultimate way to end the season for our NAPA team.
“I want to be able to get as far right on the stage as we can for the banquet because it’s based on points.
Best-ever seventh title awaits Antron, Matco Tools dragster team to close Mello Yello season after Las Vegas test’s 3.726-run
– Antron Brown and the Matco Tools team have contributed greatly to a dominating season by Don Schumacher Racing’s three Top Fuel dragster teams in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season.
DSR is on the verge of winning its 12th NHRA world championship and ninth in Top Fuel as Tony Schumacher and the U.S. Army team will arrive at Pomona, Calif., for this weekend’s finale to the 24-event season with a nearly insurmountable 109-point lead.
Although Antron and his team led by crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald fell out of championship contention at the last event at Las Vegas, the Matco Tools team leads the category with six event titles. Schumacher has won five and Spencer Massey has won three that gives DSR 14 of a possible 23 event titles this season, and the trio have combined to win each of the first five NHRA Wally trophies in the six-race Countdown to the Championship.
“We’ve had a great year but everyone on the Matco Tools team is disappointment that we’re going to Pomona without a chance to win our second championship in three years,” said Antron, who won the 2012 championship with his Matco team.
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a very special Sunday after the Finals at Pomona.”
Another event title would give Antron his seventh for the season and mark the most titles he’s won in Mello Yello season. He’s won six three times: 2012, 2011 and 2009. The Matco team has won 29 titles since 2009 for a winning percentage of 20 percent, by far the best in the series during that span.
The Matco team began building momentum for a fast finish to 2014 when it extended is stay after the Las Vegas event two weeks ago for testing and produced a best time of 3.726-second that is one of the year’s best runs in Top Fuel.
“We’re steady and ready for Pomona,” Antron said. “We’ve worked hard to leave there with our seventh trophy and with all the things our Matco guys have accomplished that’s something we haven’t done yet.
“There couldn’t be a better way for us to start getting ready for 2015.”
Jack, Comstocks continue military support at Pomona with new Veterans Trust Foundation Dodge Charger R/T
– Today is one of the most special of the year for two-time NHRA world champion Jack Beckman, but the Funny Car driver celebrates it every day with an added emphasis on weekend’s when his Don Schumacher Racing Dodge Charger R/T racer champions a cause to help past and current members of the American Armed Forces.
Beginning Friday in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season finale at Pomona, Calif., near his home in Norco, Jack will be supporting the Veterans Trust Foundation with financial support from Rodger and Karen Comstock’s Mail Terminal Services (MTS).
The Comstocks have been supportive of Jack as friends and sponsors since his first ride in a Top Fuel dragster in 2005.
Through the Comstocks, Jack has promoted the MTS Mail from Home effort that sent nearly one million postcards from NHRA fans to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was followed by the MTS Mail for Wounded Warriors and Hire a Hero programs and this weekend Jack’s Dodge will feature the Veterans Trust Foundation (TheVeteransTrust.org) that “is a strategic grant-making organization dedicated to supporting military veterans in their transition back into civilian life.”
“The timing couldn’t be better for this paint scheme with Veterans Day and with the public seeming to appreciate our military maybe more than any time in our history. Being involved with the Comstocks that directly benefits our returning veterans is so worthwhile and rewarding,” said Jack, who left the U.S. Air Force as a sergeant when he was 21 after serving four years.
Jack is never lacking for motivation but a chance to end the week of Veteran’s Day in the Pomona winner’s circle with the Comstocks and the Veterans Trust Dodge certainly stokes the fire in his belly.
And his chances are pretty good considering this well be the second Mello Yello event when veteran and championship crew chief Jimmy Prock will be leading his team with assistant Chris Cunningham.
After qualifying sixth with an impressive time of 4.045 seconds at 318 mph, Jack was upset in the opening round Robert Hight. The team remained in Las Vegas for testing that produced two runs that were more satisfying.
“We planned to make four runs but we only made two. The first one we was a planning shut off just past at 687 feet and it went 4.08 but would have been a 3.98 if we made a full run. It was a little warmer for the second one and it went 4.01 at 318 and we loaded it up.
“One of the first things Jimmy did when he go here was to pour back through our data and look at runs when it didn’t make it and looked at the changes made from the before when it did make it. He asked himself what he would have done differently. It’s interesting to see the philosophy of Jimmy instead of the specifics of Jimmy.
“His parts and tune-up approach differs significantly from our standard DSR approach. Having him on board will make our other three crew chiefs better and having them to bounce ideas off will make him better.”
Adding to the brainpower is Cunningham, the assistant and a veteran crew chief.
Chris is a smart guy,” Jack said. “He is a highly intelligent guy from his vocabulary, knowledge of trivia and what he brings to the team. “His observations and tuning a car make it very clear he’s been around a long time and understands these cars inside and out.”
