For Funny Car's Matt Hagan, 2015 so far has been a matter of fire and ice.

In qualifying for the season opener, the Rocky Boots / Mopar Dodge Charger driver experienced an engine blow-up, complete with fire, and he described that as "toasting the car like a marshmallow." But he was on fire, figuratively, that race day two weeks ago, winning the Winternationals and extending his 2014 championship domination.

For Funny Car's Matt Hagan, 2015 so far has been a matter of fire and ice.

In qualifying for the season opener, the Rocky Boots / Mopar Dodge Charger driver experienced an engine blow-up, complete with fire, and he described that as "toasting the car like a marshmallow." But he was on fire, figuratively, that race day two weeks ago, winning the Winternationals and extending his 2014 championship domination.

Then Hagan went home to his cattle farm near Christiansburg, Va., where he couldn’t escape the arctic blast that has socked the East Coast. Temperatures even in southern Virginia have fallen into the below-zero range.

Along came this weekend's Carquest Auto Parts NHRA Nationals at Chandler, Ariz., near sunny Phoenix. And Hagan welcomed the chance to warm up himself and his Don Schumacher Racing Funny Car again. On the track once again, Hagan has been hot. He took the early lead Friday and ran what he called "two great laps out there with an .02 [a 4.02-second elapsed time] and an .03."

However, Courtney Force cooled his heels overnight, recording a three-second pass to upstage him for the provisional No. 1 spot. But Hagan blazed back with a track-record 3.978-second run at 320.28 mph – his career-best elapsed time and the fifth-quickest Funny Car run in NHRA history – to reclaim that No. 1 starting position. It gave DSR the qualifying leaders in both nitro classes on the 1,000-foot course at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park. Hagan followed the lead of Top Fuel teammate Tony Schumacher for another milestone moment for the two reigning champions.

So Hagan won the Pomona race, earned his first top-qualifying position at Phoenix with a monster blast, and is taking direct aim at his first event title here. And for Matt Hagan, life right now is extra-cool.

Farmer Hagan will face "Surfer Dude" Jeff Diehl, the No. 16 qualifier, in the first round of eliminations Sunday.

Diehl wrestled with his own car and secured the No. 15 slot in the third overall session, but he bypassed his last chance to improve and rode out the drama to end up on the bump as Shane Westerfield leapfrogged him and knocked out Terry Haddock.

Hagan gave most of the credit for this 18th career No. 1 position to crew chief Dickie Venables, assistant crew chief Mike Knudsen, and car chief Jason Davis, saying, "It speaks volumes for why we are a championship team. Our guys have just been phenomenal These guys are putting one hell of a race car underneath me, and I'm very blessed to be able to drive the wheels off of it. That thing's just diggin'."

As he was zipping down the track, Hagan said, he told himself, "Man, this thing's runnin' good. Just keep it in the groove and stay together." And he would know how a three-second pass feels. He recorded the class' first sub-four-second run (3.995 in 2011 at Concord, N.C.). With this run, Hagan owns three of the top 10 Funny Car E.T.s of all-time, all three-second efforts.
"Dickie and I talked up in the lounge before the run. We were qualified well, and at the worst we thought we would maybe lose a spot or two if we smoked the tires," Hagan said. "But Dickie just decided we were going after it. It got late enough where it cooled down, and it held the power out there."

Venables said, "We're obviously happy with that. We've got a really good race car here at Phoenix. We don't usually try to run those kind of numbers."

Hagan said Friday, "We're working with the same combo that we had in Pomona, so obviously the car is running good." Even after he slipped to No. 4 Friday night, he said of his performance, "We made two great laps out there in the new Dodge Charger with an .02 and an .03 [4.02 and 4.03 seconds in elapsed time]. You can't ask for much more. We've got a good race car, and we're going cleanly down the racetrack and that is half the battle.
 
"We just have a great race car and I feel really good about tomorrow," he said Saturday. "It's always tough to win from the No. 1 spot. Obviously there's going to be some struggles along the way this year, but this team just continues to grow and continues to impress me and continues to awe me.

"We are just really coming together and working well together. Everybody gets along great and we have some great chemistry. I'm very, very excited about what the future holds for us this year. I think we are going to win a lot of races and have a lot of fun doing it."

The act of cutting and pasting articles from this publication to a message board is a clear copyright violation as is pulling photos to post on social media sites. All articles and photography published in CompetitionPlus.com are protected by United States of America and International copyright laws unless mentioned otherwise. The content on this website is intended for the private use of the reader and may not be published or reposted in any form without the prior written consent of CompetitionPlus.com.