Seattle Event Recap for the Flav-R-Pac NHRA Northwest Nationals

Leah Pruett & Matt Hagan

Dodge Direct Connection Top Fuel & Funny Car Drivers
Flav-R-Pac NHRA Northwest Nationals
July 21-23 | Kent, Washington

Event Recap

Leah Pruett, driver of the Dodge Direct Connection Top Fuel Dragster:
• Earned No. 11 provisional qualifying position in Q1 on Friday (6.451 ET at 100.24 mph)
• Fell to No. 12 provisional qualifying position in Q2 on Saturday (3.981 ET at 236.05 mph)
• Secured No. 9 qualifying position in Q3 on Saturday (3.807 ET at 323.43 mph)
• Eliminated following Round 1 on Sunday:
• Round 1: 3.765 ET at 326.56 mph, lost to Clay Millican (3.763 ET at 328.86 mph)
• Currently third in the Top Fuel championship standings, 136 points behind Top Fuel leader Steve Torrence

Matt Hagan, driver of the Dodge Direct Connection Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car:
• Earned No. 7 provisional qualifying position in Q1 on Friday (4.015 ET at 318.02 mph)
• Fell to No. 9 provisional qualifying position based off of Friday’s Q1 run. In Q2 on Saturday, Hagan ran a 6.205 ET at 110.76 mph. Q2 was also part of the NHRA’s Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge, where Hagan faced Ron Capps. Capps defeated Hagan with his run of 3.961 ET at 322.81 mph.
• Secured No. 9 qualifying position based off of Friday’s Q1 run. In Q3 on Saturday, Hagan ran a 4.027 ET at 321.88 mph.
• Eliminated following Round 1 on Sunday:
• Round 1: 5.068 ET at 163.63 mph, lost to Tim Wilkerson (3.928 ET at 324.83 mph)
• Currently leading the Funny Car championship standings, 17 points ahead of Ron Capps

Notes of Interest

• Hagan participated in his fourth Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge of the season. His three previous appearances came in the NHRA Arizona Nationals, the Route 66 NHRA Nationals and the Dodge Power Brokers NHRA Mile-High Nationals.
• Both Pruett and Hagan maintained their point positions following this weekend’s Flav-R-Pac NHRA Northwest Nationals.
• There are four races remaining before the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series’ Countdown to the Championship begins.

Leah Pruett, Driver of the Dodge Direct Connection Top Fuel Dragster

“Coming up on the short side of another extremely close race first round is where our patience and work ethic get tested. The sting is sharp and the frustration of how to get better as a driver is thick, but the perseverance of this team to keep digging together out of this hole is the prevailing attitude and direction we have.”

Matt Hagan, Driver of the Dodge Direct Connection Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car

“There are some weekends where things are just off and this was one of them. It makes you appreciate when things go well. I hate that we didn’t have a great weekend for Dodge between Leah and myself. It was a tricky race track out there. One thing I do know is that I have one of the smartest crew chiefs out there in Dickie Venables. He’ll figure out whatever is wrong and it won’t be long before we’re back on top having a good run at it. We usually do pretty well in Seattle, so it was surprising a little bit. We’re looking ahead to Sonoma, where we’re going to have Johnson’s Horsepowered Garage on the car. I’m excited about that and they’re a great group of people. We want to have a good showing for them. We’ll get into town early to do some press in Sacramento, which I’m looking forward to.”

Next Up

The next event on the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series schedule is the DENSO NHRA Sonoma Nationals July 28-30 at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway. The event serves as the third and final stop in the NHRA’s Western Swing.

-TSR-

Contact Ashley Wilson
Tony Stewart Racing
(303) 594-8147 or [email protected]