NHRA nitro Funny Car driver Matt Hagan has proven he can stay calm on a dragstrip as he has shown by coming through and winning world championships in 2011 and 2014.

Hagan, however, acknowledged none of his driving skills prepared him for what Mother Nature dealt to his farm in Christiansburg, Va., Tuesday.

A torrential downpour flooded the creek on his farm and put Hagan in rescue mode as he struggled to save his 150-plus head of cattle.

“This has been crazy,” Hagan said. “I woke up (Tuesday) and the creek was rising. We ran down there and cut the gates open and started pulling cattle up out of the water. I had water at my shins and within two hours it was over my knees and in three hours I was waist deep in it. I was trying to wade across stuff and pick cattle up and throw them up on my back and wade back across there. It was pretty exhausting mentally and physically (Tuesday). It was a long, long day.”

According to Hagan, he didn’t lose any cattle in the flood, but both of the entrances to his farm are underwater.

“(The water) is at least a pickup truck or two deep,” Hagan said. “I have a little exit through a neighbor’s yard that we can get back to another road, so I might have to take a four-wheeler Thursday to get out of here. Ain’t nobody going nowhere, even in a 200 horsepower tractor.”

Hagan said the creek on his property is no wider than a truck and the deepest part of it is probably 6 feet, with the majority of it being 1½ to 2 feet deep.

“Now, it is a river down through my farm,” Hagan said. “When you have days like this you wish you were sitting in a Funny Car and not out here. But, all my cattle would be dead if I wasn’t here (Tuesday). It could have been a lot worse. The rains could have come in the middle of the night and I would have woke up to find everything was dead.”

Weather permitting, Hagan will be competing at the NHRA Keystone Nationals Friday through Sunday in Reading, Pa.

Farmers like Hagan pray for rain, but this was too much to handle. In the past week, Christiansburg has received more than five inches of rain and rain is in the forecast every day through Oct. 5.

“I was praying for rain because it had been dry for almost a month here,” Hagan said. “We needed some rain in a bad way, but there is that ol’ saying be careful what you wish for sometimes.”