- Dodge//SRT and Mopar’s 2022 National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Camping World Drag Racing series season gets rolling with two Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Cars driving to semifinal appearances at the 62nd annual Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals presented by ProtectTheHarvest.com at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, California
- Three-time Funny Car champ Matt Hagan powered Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) to their first semifinal appearance aboard the No. 3 qualified Dodge Power Brokers Charger SRT Hellcat
- Cruz Pedregon drove his Snap-On Tool Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car from No. 4 seeded position to a semifinal appearance
- Leah Pruett took her Dodge Power Brokers dragster for a solid first round drive for TSR’s inaugural Top Fuel elimination effort
February 20, 2022, Pomona, California — Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) Funny Car driver Matt Hagan hit the throttle on the 2022 National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Camping World Drag Racing Series season by driving his Dodge Power Brokers Charger SRT Hellcat from his No. 3 qualifying position to the semifinals at the 62nd annual Lucas Oil Winternationals presented by ProtectTheHarvest.com. Also driving to a semifinal appearance at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, California, was the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat piloted by Cruz Pedregon from a fourth place seeding.
Hagan launched his season with a strong qualifying performance to secure the No. 3 spot on the eliminations ladder. He earned the fledgling TSR team’s first Funny Car round win aboard the Dodge Power Brokers Charger SRT Hellcat with a 4.071 seconds pass at 260.31 mph that saw the three-time Winternationals winner have to peddle it at the 660-foot mark but still turn on the win light. The team regrouped quickly and came back strong in the second round against No. 6 seed Bob Tasca by posting their quickest run of the weekend with a 3.885-second elapsed time run at 328.94 mph to beat his opponent’s 3.984 sec./325.77 mph effort.
The semifinal match pitted Hagan against the No. 2 qualifier Robert Hight and saw the TSR Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat take the early lead with a 0.048-second reaction time to his opponent’s 0.059-second start. Unfortunately, a dropped cylinder hampered Hagan’s on track progress and brought the team’s first outing to a close.
Meanwhile, Pedregon powered his Snap-on Tools Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat from the No. 4 spot on the ladder through eliminations with a first round win over Terry Haddock and a solid second round victory after a side-by-side drag race with Alexis DeJoria to advance to the semifinals. Paired with No. 1 qualifier Ron Capps for the next elimination round, Pedregon put in a good lap with a 3.918 sec./309.77 mph pass but it wasn’t quite enough to challenge Capps’ 3.881 sec./331.28 mph run.
Tony Stewart Racing Top Fuel pilot Leah Pruett was pleased with the first official qualifying laps of the season for the new team aboard her Dodge Power Brokers dragster to put her in the top half of the eliminations ladder with a best run of 3.768 seconds at 326.63 mph. From the No. 7 position and with lane choice over No. 10 seed Antron Brown, Pruett wheeled her HEMI®-powered machine to a solid pass at 3.748 sec./328.86 mph with a 0.118-second reaction time. However, as their first elimination run wasn’t quite enough to overtake Brown’s quicker 0.057-second start and 3.724 sec./ 327.66 mph lap and turn on the win lights for the team’s first round, the TSR team will now put their focus on preparations for the next national event.
The Dodge//SRT Mopar contingent will now head to Phoenix, Arizona, for next weekend’s NHRA Arizona Nationals at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park on February 25-27.
ADDITIONAL NOTES and QUOTES:
Leah Pruett, Dodge Power Brokers Top Fuel Dragster
(No. 7 Qualifier – 3.726 seconds at 328.54 mph)
Round 1: (0.118-second reaction time, 3.748 seconds at 328.86 mph) loss to No. 10 Antron Brown (0.057/3.724/327.66)
“If you would have told me three months ago that we would qualify the Dodge Power Brokers dragster No. 7 for the Winternationals, make it down the track nearly every time, have a healthy running engine combination with a reactive car, and a team that gels together very well, I would take that 10 out of 10 times. We are still sorting our power range and developing our baseline and I am learning to race under different circumstances. I had a less than impressive start, very atypical of the consistent quick times I had in qualifying. I will be working on managing my happy throttle foot while we fine tune our high HEMI horsepower performance.”
Matt Hagan, Dodge Power Brokers Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car
(No. 3 Qualifier – 3.886 seconds at 313.07 mph)
Round 1: (0.072-second reaction time, 4.071 seconds at 260.31 mph) defeats No. 14 Chad Green (0.072/4.124/282.13)
Round 2: (0.057/3.885/328.94) defeats No. 6 Bob Tasca (0.052/3.984/325.77)
Round 3: (0.048/4.026/317.64) loss to No. 2 Robert Hight (0.059/3.861/332.10) cylinder out
“I am really proud of Tony (Stewart) Leah (Pruett) for putting this all together in such a quick fashion. I’m also super proud of my guys to be able to get a rhythm going today, since we’re all in a new position. We only had an hour to turn the car around, so we still had to check headers, weigh and scale in that time. Today is obviously not the result we wanted, getting eliminated in the semifinals. I know what we are capable of and I know what we can do to get that fixed. We’ll go onto Phoenix and be just as strong there. I’m really proud of my lights, I was murdering the tree all weekend. That gives me confidence as a driver, but it also gets in other drivers’ heads. We want to win every race we can, but I was pretty happy with this Dodge Power Brokers car for the first outing. You learn from your mistakes and move forward. Drag racing has the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. You lose more than you win, but when you win, it’s great. I’m looking forward to that first win with this team.”
“Putting Pomona behind us and rolling into Phoenix right away helps the team get back into the groove of things; making a run, taking it apart, putting it back together and dragging it back up to the starting line and just getting back into the rhythm. That rhythm helps builds confidence in my team and lets me just focus on what I have to do on the starting line with the Dodge Power Brokers Hellcat so we can turn on more win lights.”
Cruz Pedregon, Pedregon Racing Snap-on® Tools Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat
(No. 4 Qualifier – 3.906 seconds at 325.22 mph)
Round 1: (0.128-second reaction time, 3.954 seconds at 323.43 mph) defeats No. 13 Terry Haddock (0.118/6.011/120.36)
Round 2: (0.041/3.962/323.66) defeats No. 5 Alexis DeJoria (0.062/3.981/323.50)
Round 3: (0.082/3.918/309.77) loss to No. 1 Ron Capps (0.067/3.881/331.28)
“I’m happy with today’s semifinal performance. Semifinal finishes and runner-ups, we’re going to have a few of those [this year]. It was some good competition and (Ron) Capps had a really good car. (My crew chief) JC (John Collins), I could tell by the look on his face he was about to put it through there. What a great job these guys have done. We didn’t quite have the performance these other guys did, but when it counted, we started to creep up on it. A little bit of glare out there. I missed the tree a little tiny bit and against guys like Capps, you can’t miss the tree at all. He was right there. For the Snap-on Tools Dodge team, Russells Petroff and everybody that helps us, the semifinals is a great start.”
DodgeGarage: Digital Hub for Drag Racing News
Fans can follow all the NHRA action this season at DodgeGarage, the one-stop portal for Dodge//SRT and Mopar drag-racing news. The site includes daily updates and access to an online racing HQ, news, events, galleries, available downloads and merchandise. For more information, visit www.dodgegarage.com.
@DodgeMoparMotorsports on Instagram
The @DodgeMoparMotorsports Instagram channel continues to share content capturing Dodge//SRT Mopar drivers on the track. Fans can see action from the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series and NHRA Sportsman grassroots racers, competing in classes such as Factory Stock Showdown, Stock and Super Stock, as well as additional motorsports series.
Dodge//SRT
For more than 100 years, the Dodge brand has carried on the spirit of brothers John and Horace Dodge. Their influence continues today as Dodge shifts into high gear with muscle cars and SUVs that deliver unrivaled performance in each of the segments where they compete.
Dodge drives forward as a pure performance brand, offering SRT versions of every model across the lineup. For the 2022 model year, Dodge delivers the drag-strip dominating 807-horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Super Stock, the 797-horsepower Dodge Charger SRT Redeye, the most powerful and fastest mass-produced sedan in the world, and the Dodge Durango SRT 392, America’s fastest, most powerful and most capable three-row SUV. Combined, these three muscle cars make Dodge the industry’s most powerful brand, offering more horsepower than any other American brand across its entire lineup.
In 2020, Dodge was named the “#1 Brand in Initial Quality,” making it the first domestic brand ever to rank No. 1 in the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study (IQS). In 2021, Dodge brand ranked No. 1 in the J.D. Power APEAL Study (mass market) — making it the only domestic brand ever to do so two years in a row.
Dodge is part of the portfolio of brands offered by leading global automaker and mobility provider Stellantis. For more information regarding Stellantis (NYSE: STLA), please visit www.stellantis.com.
Mopar
This year marks the 85th anniversary of Mopar.
A simple combination of the words MOtor and PARts, Mopar offers exceptional service, parts and customer-care. Born in 1937 as the name of a line of antifreeze products, Mopar has evolved over nearly 85 years to represent both complete vehicle care and authentic performance for owners and enthusiasts worldwide.
Mopar made its mark in the 1960s during the muscle-car era with performance parts to enhance speed and handling for both on-road and racing use. Later, Mopar expanded to include technical service and customer support, and today integrates service, parts and customer-care operations in order to enhance customer and dealer support worldwide.
Complete information on Mopar is available at www.mopar.com. For more information regarding Stellantis (NYSE: STLA), please visit www.stellantis.com.
Follow Dodge, Mopar and Stellantis news and video on:
Company blog: blog.stellantisnorthamerica.com
Media website: media.stellantisnorthamerica.com
Dodge brand: www.dodge.com
Mopar brand: www.mopar.com/
DodgeGarage: www.dodgegarage.com
Mopar blog: blog.mopar.com/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/dodge and www.facebook.com/mopar
Instagram: @Dodgemoparmotorsports, @dodgeofficial and @officialmopar
Twitter: @Dodge, @OfficialMopar and @StellantisNA
YouTube: www.youtube.com/dodge, https://www.youtube.com/c/mopar and www.youtube.com/StellantisNA
Tony this is the best win you have every had happy for you both she is so pretty, you are so good looking also happy life for you both those babies will be so cute miss coning to track hard for use to walk so far at the track we had tickets for 15 years until age got use but catch it on tv. when it shows it we loved it at Eldora miss Bernice & earl a lot you are doing a great job tony we live in Elizabethtown, Ky be safe happy life happy wife tony .
LINDA & ERVIN MARTIN