Matt Hagan loves the expensive high-performance components on his Freightliner/DSR Funny Car, the more expensive, the more love. But those 50-cent parts are ruining the two-time champion's life, at least in the last two races they have.

"It’s been one those things where you take these cars bolted together there’s $300,000 worth of stuff on them, and then sometimes it comes down to a 50 cent part, $50 part, 50 anything part," Hagan said. "And it’s just like you know all the parts and pieces, and you have one bad part, and you can’t make a run."

The devil is in the details, and lately, those have been the "devil."

"In Brainerd, we had a kill switch which cut the car off, and it’s just a wire. A simple wire," Hagan exclaimed. "But it’s a safety mechanism and it’s there for if the throttle hangs on the burnout or whatever to reach over and shut the car off, which is a good thing, but it’s just another thing that can go wrong on these cars, and it did. It broke and shut the car off on the burnout, number two qualifier.

"And then come into Indy and we’re number one qualifier run a .79, got one of the fastest hot rods out there and then just have basically a check valve on the cannon there which bleeds the air, or allows the air to bleed into the cannon to push the bearing back, and it just went bad. It didn’t have enough pressure to push the bearing back and cost us the run in Indy, first round."

It's a part of drag racing Hagan just cannot bringing himself to shrug his broad shoulders at.

"It just rips your heart out, you know," Hagan said. "And I think it’s because you care so much but it’s just one of those things where you just you know you want to take that part and take it home and jump on it and burn it and stomp it. It’s just like oh my gosh, all the stuff that we have on these cars, the parts and pieces, and it’s these little itty bitty things. So you know the biggest thing is just not mess up the little things and then let all the big things come together."

So how does one stop it? Hagan has his ideas, since these issues have become evil in his eyes.

"Maybe start living right or something. I don’t know man. Go to church more or something," Hagan said. "I mean it happens to the best of us I guess out here. It’s kind of, it’s just a lot of humble pie to eat when it’s two in a row like that. You can take one here and there, but when they’re back to back little things like that, it just, it definitely is hard to choke down that humble pie."