Matt Hagan was less than one mile per hour from being the fastest driver of a piston-driven drag racing vehicle in the world. 

On May 20, 2016, Hagan set both ends of the NHRA Funny Car national record with a 3.862-second time at 335.57 mph.

That speed was the fastest of any Funny Car or Top Fuel dragster in NHRA history on the current 1,000-foot track, and the fastest a Funny Car has ever gone at the end of a quarter-mile.

NHRA has been competing at 1,000 feet for nitro Funny Cars and Top Fuel since the 2008 Mile-High Nationals in Denver. Jack Beckman, Hagan’s DSR teammatepreviously held the nitro Funny Car quarter-mile mph record at 333.66 mph, which he set in 2006. The Top Fuel record for a quarter-mile was set by Tony Schumacher at 336.15 mph, in 2005.

Hagan, the 2011 and 2014 nitro Funny Car world champ, still basks in the glow of drag racing history.

“The track conditions were just incredible,” Hagan said. “Going up there to the staging lanes, you’re talking to your crew chief and your kind of thinking what is he going to try and run? They kind of has a number in his head and obviously your adrenaline is going and your heart is pounding and your pulling your seat belts down and you have your mouthpiece in and your grinding on it. You just know if it hooks and goes, it’s going to be really fast.”

Hagan’s team is led by crew chief Dickie Venables and assistant Michael Knudsen and they made the right calls, and Hagan acknowledged he thought he could post a great ET moments after he completed his burnout.

“When I did my burnout, a lot of times on tracks when you step off the pedal it just rolls for a while, but this deal here I stepped off the pedal and it stuck and didn’t go very far,” Hagan said. “That’s when I thought “Wow it’s good out here.’ When I was staging the car, my heart was pounding and when I left it hopped up on the tire really quick and it had a little fast paddle. I was thinking ‘Oh no,’ I didn’t want to steer it too much because a lot of times when you’re on a really fast run if you steer it too much, it will come loose because it will upset the rear-end. It got through that little paddle and it was sticking me back in the seat. The only thing was that was holding my head forward was that chin clip there that we tie our helmets down with. In the middle is where it really felt like it was running when clutch comes to it and it comes 1 to 1. After I got through the middle part and it was trucking, I was just trying to keep it in the groove and it kept digging and kept running and keeps pulling. Then I found the finish line and put those parachutes out.”

According to Hagan, pulling the parachutes was a painful experience that made him forget for moment about his blistering lap.

“The buckle where my parachute is caught me on the side of my (right) leg and pinched me really hard, so I wasn’t so much concerned with how fast we ran as I was about getting the seat belts undone so my leg would quit being on fire.”

In the midst of his pain, Hagan realized quickly his run was special.

“(My crew) was screaming and hollering, so I thought I must have run pretty good.” Hagan said. “When I came around the corner all my guys were jumping up and down and hollering. It was a killer run, but at the time I was thinking I don’t know if that will hold because there were a bunch of good cars behind us. A lot of guys went for it after us and Funny Car is just super competitive. It gets my blood pumping and that’s why we do it because you never know what you’re going to get. You never know how fast you can go and what these cars are going to throw at you. Every lap is a handful.”

Hagan was paired with Alexis DeJoria of Kalitta Motorsports and her time of 3.875 (332.18 mph) combined with Hagan’s produced the quickest pair ever by Funny Cars.

Hagan and DeJoria’s pair of runs were made possible thanks to mild weather (66 degrees) and a cool track temperature (78 degrees).

“Now that NHRA has put these rev limiters on these cars, we did that (3.862 seconds, 335.57 mph) with a cylinder out, and that’s crazy,” Hagan said. “There’s a real fine there with how we can limit these rev limiters on these cars without us blowing motors up and putting holes out. Nowadays, it’s really hard to keep eight cylinders lit towards the finish line because of the rev limiter.”

Hagan said although his Funny Car was blazing down the track, he was calm behind the wheel.

“I absolutely was in a zone,” Hagan said. “Your mind slows it all down for you and you’re just processing all that information a lot quicker. You wouldn’t think your mind would slow things down when you’re going 335 mph, but it does. The first couple of times I drove a (nitro) Funny Car it was just a blur. I didn’t know how I got to the end, it was crazy. Then as you make more runs, things start to slow down for you and you get a feel for where you’re at.”

Actually, Hagan wasn’t the only driver to set a national record Friday. Brittany Force made Top Fuel history with a national record elapsed time of 3.676 seconds in her Monster Energy dragster.

“If you came to the race (Friday) and you walked out disappointed, you need to find a different sport to watch,” Hagan said. “Two national (elapsed time records) in Funny Car and Top Fuel, it just doesn’t get any better than that.”

Hagan did acknowledge seeing the look on his crew chief Venables face after they rewrote the NHRA record book was priceless.

“It was incredible to see the smile on his face,” Hagan said. “Obviously the beginning of this year was a little tough start for us and not the way we wanted it to go. We’ve been pulling our hair out over here, trying to get things right and together. We’re are the only one in the DSR camp (of Funny Cars) running the 6-disc clutch and it has been all on Dickie to figure the thing out. So to be able to go out there and see a number like that and have the car do as well as it did, you could tell there was just a huge amount of pressure lifted off his shoulders.”