New Mopar Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car on a Hot Streak in Las Vegas;
Hagan Tops Provisional Qualifying at 16th Annual NHRA Nationals
Hagan drives Mopar to provisional pole position at 16th annual NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Don Schumacher Racing teammates Hagan, Beckman and Johnson drive their 2015 Mopar Dodge Charger Funny Cars to top–three spots in Friday qualifying
DSR Mopar drivers looking to keep the 2015 Mopar Dodge Charger R/T win streak going in Las Vegas after wins in first four events
Johnson seeded No.4 for Pro Stock edition of Saturday’s K&N Horsepower Challenge race-within-a-race, eighth after two Friday qualifying sessions
Las Vegas (Friday, April 10, 2015) – Everyone in Las Vegas loves a hot streak and after completing two qualifying sessions at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Friday for the SummitRacing.com National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Nationals event, the Mopar contingent of HEMI®-powered Dodge Funny Cars looks to be on a good one.
Already rolling into this weekend’s action riding a winning streak is the Don Schumacher Racing team and the 2015 Mopar Dodge Charger R/T after earning four consecutive national title wins since the competition debut of the new Funny Car body in the season opening event. Matt Hagan, who won the first two Wally trophies of the year then had unfortunate first-round exits in the last two events, got back into the groove to take his Mopar Express Lane Dodge Charger R/T to the top of the timing sheets in both qualifying sessions to earn the provisional No.1 Qualifier position.
Hagan, who would love to leave Las Vegas a winner after finishing runner-up at The Strip three times, took the top spot and three bonus points in the first qualifying session by posting an elapsed time pass of 4.067 seconds at 313.88 mile per hours. Not to be outdone, his DSR teammate, Tommy Johnson Jr., raised the stakes in the second session by posting a 4.020 second / 313.07 mph run to give the Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger R/T the quickest pass. But that time didn’t stand for very long as DSR teammate Jack Beckman, still riding high as winner of the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals two weekends ago in Charlotte, upped the ante in the Infinite Hero Dodge Charger R/T on its second run by posting a 4.014 /315.64.
However, Hagan wasn’t quite done yet and on the final pass of the day came back with a 4.007/318.02 pass despite losing two engine cylinders at the end of his run to take back his spot atop the provisional ladder and earn all six bonus points, putting the DSR teammates 1-2-3 in Friday qualifying.
“What impressed me is that we went 318 mph out there with two holes out and with 100 feet left to go,” Hagan said. “To do that on six cylinders is pretty impressive. (Crew Chief) Dickie (Venables) is making a lot of horsepower and just killing it out there. He’s making the right calls on the racetrack. The car is just really strong to come out No.1., but things will change up tomorrow and we just have to work hard and make sure we’re No.1 at the end of the day.”
While Ron Capps, winner of the Gatornationals title, didn’t get in on the top-times leapfrogging action with his teammates, he did close out the day with the seventh quickest run at 4.075/316.15.
In the Pro Stock class, drivers not only worked on their qualifying efforts for Sunday’s eliminations rounds but they also prepared for Saturday’s K&N Horsepower Challenge, a kind of All-Star race-within-a-race with an eight-racer field made up of the seven drivers who have accumulated the most points in qualifying since this same event last season, along with a final spot for the driver added in by a fan vote. The winner of the event will earn $50,000, and the runner-up will take home $10,000.
For this year’s edition, Allen Johnson is seeded fourth in the “Magneti Marelli Offered by Mopar” Dodge Dart, while the HEMI-powered entry of V. Gaines will start eighth after the driver was voted in as a fan favorite. Johnson last won the K&N Challenge race-within-a-race bonus event in 2013, then doubled-up by also winning the Las Vegas National title to take home the additional “Sweep Bonus” of $50,000. A two-time winner of the challenge, Johnson is the only driver in its history to win the final round on a hole-shot using a perfect 0.000-second reaction time in 2008 aboard a Dodge Stratus. His second win came in 2013 aboard the Dodge Avenger, and a victory this weekend would be the first for a Dodge Dart since its introduction last season.
In the first round of Saturday’s K&N Horsepower Challenge, Johnson will face off against fifth seed Vincent Nobile, while Gaines will see number one seed Shane Gray. Erica Enders-Stevens, seeded second, will battle seventh seed Chris McGaha, while Jason Line (3) and Jonathon Gray (6) will be paired up.
In preparation for the qualifying showdown, Johnson ran his best elapsed time run at 6.645 seconds at 208.39 to put the Magneti Marelli Dodge Dart eighth on the timing sheets. Fellow Mopar driver V. Gaines ran a 6.682/207.91 to sit provisionally 11th with two qualifying sessions left to set the ladders for Sunday’s eliminations.
Television coverage for the fifth of 24 events in the 2015 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season will begin with a two and a half hour live qualifying broadcast from Las Vegas on ESPN2 this Saturday, April 11, starting at 6 p.m. EDT. Three hours of eliminations coverage will be available on ESPN2 this Sunday, April 12, starting at 8 p.m. EDT.