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NATIONAL HOT ROD ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCEMarch 4, 2015Matt HaganSCOTT SMITH: We are joined by Matt Hagan from Funny Car. Matt is continuing his hot streak from the end of last season into the early part of 2015. He's won the first two events of the season and this marks the first time he's won two consecutive events in his career. It's the fifth time to have multiple wins in the season and his win streak technically dates back to Pomona II where he won the season-ending event. Matt, you have yet to win at Gainesville. Start there with going into the event. You'd love to have three in a row, get that Gainesville win. Is that what you're looking at? MATT HAGAN: I think you want to win 'em all. You have to win the first two to win 'em all. It's going to be a hard thing to do to win three in a row or four in a row, so to speak, now. There's just so much competition out there. Honestly, this team blows me away every weekend. The car performs, it runs. I try not to mess it up, keeping it in the groove, all the stuff we have to do as far as leaving on time. The car continually impresses me, and my crew guys, they work so hard to make sure things are right. What's so tough about Nitro Funny Car, 10,000 horsepower, over 300 miles per hour, you can do everything right, driver does everything right, crew chief does everything right, and the crew guys wrenching on it do everything right, and you still lose because it sticks a part out there, drops a cylinder. To be able to turn on 12 consecutive win lights on Sunday, to have the streak we've been on, be able to win a championship at the end of last year, win the race, come out here and win two more races to start the year off, it's been pretty phenomenal. It goes to show you why we are a championship team. Hopefully it continues. But, you know, it's like anything, you just got to keep running with the ball till you hit the end zone. All in all I think we got a great car, a great team. I'm looking forward to big things in the future. SCOTT SMITH: We'll take questions for Matt. Q. Matt, it's often said surrounding yourself with good people is the key to good success. Your take on that? MATT HAGAN: Absolutely. Honestly, I'd love to sit here and tell you I'm the greatest driver in the world. But it's because I have the greatest team around me that we're doing so well. I just try not to mess it up. These guys that put these cars together really are make or break for you as far as your success. I've had a crew chief at one time, one year he took the year off pretty much. You can't wish that thing to the finish line any faster than what it's going to get there. It really comes down to crew chiefs, it comes down to guys putting your car together, it comes down to that team, charisma, the energy you have together. Honestly, this team I'm with right now, I've never been in that situation where we've had such great chemistry, such great charisma. Everybody gels, gets on. We're turning on win lights. Even when we were struggling last year at the beginning of the year, we started out with a new combination. It didn't work out. Five races in we said we got to change back to what we know. It took another five races. Half of your season is gone. Even then, when things were a little tough, nobody got down. Everybody was really up and ready to go, ready to race. Everybody brought their A game every week. Then the car started coming back around. We got our combination back, started running strong again, came out and won the championship. We continued that momentum into this year. Honestly, it's really, really about the people you put around you. I've been very, very fortunate here at DSR to have the best of the best. I wouldn't trade my guys for anybody. Q. Matt, a lot of people talking lately about NHRA Mello Yello drag racing, the entertainment of it. It makes me think about the history of this sport, how every racer was a driver who wanted to win, but at the same time they were in many ways a showman out there to put on an entertaining race for the fans to increase their fan base. Seems that can only come from confidence of knowing you can win. How do you find yourself increasing that as you win more races, getting more notoriety, more TV time, fans following you? Does that confidence allow you to be more entertaining, to talk more, speak more, interact more? What do you think the balance is between those two? MATT HAGAN: Yeah, I mean, I think that obviously it goes hand-in-hand. The more you win, the more TV time you get, the more exposure, the more opportunity you have to reach out and touch new fans and also grow your fan base along with drag racing's fan base. So, yeah, it's very important as far as the confidence side of stuff. I mean, I know I crawl in a racecar, I can win any Sunday that I sit in it. That's huge. To be able to say I can turn four win lights on this Sunday no matter what, the confidence there is just phenomenal. It's just a matter of getting it right and doing it right, turning the win lights on. I know we're capable of doing that. So when we do that, the exposure is going to grow. But I think it comes down to just being a personable person as well. You look at some people that's had huge success, and nobody likes them because they're dicks. Excuse my language, but that's just the way it is. Some people just don't jibe, they don't do well on TV, they don't do well with the media, they don't talk to the fans. I think if you have that opportunity, it is very important as a showman, as a driver, as a representative of the sport, to get out there and be interactive with your fans, get these young kids involved in the sport, do things above and beyond what a lot of other drivers aren't doing to engage the fans. I like to think I'm one of those guys that can do that. Some of these guys hide in their trailers because they don't want to sign autographs. Dude, what are you doing? I can remember when I couldn't give an autograph away. Now I'm grateful that someone wants my autograph. I don't know. I guess I've had such a huge amount of success in such a short amount of time, maybe I haven't forgot where it come from. It's been really humbling to me. I feel like if we can get these fans involved... Drag racing, NHRA drag racing, is truly a phenomenal sport. It sells itself once you get onto the racetrack. But we've got to get these kids there, get these families there, and the rest of it will take care of itself. I've never had a new fan come up and say, I did not have a good time here, I want my money back, whatever. It is just an amazing experience to see two 10,000 horsepower cars go down the racetrack. Isn't anything you can explain to anybody. You have to get out there and see it. As far as my opportunity to do that, I want to get out there, engage with the fans, grow the fans with everybody else. Q. Regarding the Gatornationals, this is the East Coast opener. If there was crown jewels or big four races, this would certainly be one of them. Many of the rivalries in the past, East Coast, West Coast, we see it in virtually every sport, this is the East Coast opener. I'd like your thoughts on the Gatornationals as a premiere event in motorsports, not just in drag racing, in terms of what it means as an East Coast guy to go down and potentially win this race. MATT HAGAN: I mean, I want to win the Gatornationals more than I want to win Indy. It's just something I have a lot of history there, I got (indiscernible), started my Pro Mod racing there. There's so much history at that track. I have some personal history there with it as well. I want to win it, man. I want to win them all. I'm kind of greedy when I say that. It's true. If you go out there and you don't have that desire and drive to win, you shouldn't be sitting in the seat anyway. It's important to put it in perspective just because it's like the first bang for the East Coast to come out here and experience nitro. Cooped up all winter long in the house, everybody goes down to Florida to smell nitro, gag, watch your eyes run. On the East Coast, people go crazy for Gainesville. It's a packed house. We'll be racing in front of thousands of fans next weekend coming up. It is really cool to do your burnout, look around in the stands, it's slammed. For me, it gets my blood pumping. Q. Matt, regarding the fan base, we've seen more and more women come into NHRA over the last 10 years. It's been a while in your division. What have you noticed in terms of how that's changed maybe the fan base in the grandstands and pits, what have you? MATT HAGAN: I think it's great for our sport to have women out here driving these cars because they do bring the woman side of things to the sport when it's been predominantly a gearhead man kind of sport. I think it is huge. No different than Erica Enders with the Pro Stock stuff. I remember when I was a kid, deciding whether I was going to drive Pro Stock, you see her with the Slammers Milk. You have little girls lined up around the corner to get her autograph. Some of these little girls out here, they're tougher than some of these boys. They got to have somebody to root for, too. I think it's just a great thing all the way around. It's not really about whether being a girl or a boy, it's about the skill set you have, being able to utilize that.  When I beat somebody knowing they've a good leaver, a good driver, I still turn the win light on, that's what does it for me. It's not, Oh, I beat this girl, I beat this guy. It's about, You're a competitor and how good are you? You know what I mean.  That's just the way it draws out to be. I think it's good that we do have women in our sport, though, because we need to grow our sport in every way, shape and form we can. SCOTT SMITH: You talked earlier about your team. I think you talked at the end of last year your team coming together, doing a lot of stuff outside of the track. Is that still the case? Do you still get together even outside of the races as much as you can? MATT HAGAN: Yeah, absolutely. This is honestly my family away from my family. Those boys have skin in the game. I think they know it's not just a job to them. There's a lot of boys out here that wrench on these cars that are just there for the paycheck. They like doing what they're doing, but their heart's not really in it. I know for a fact 100% that my guys, their hearts are in it more than they're worried about the paycheck side of things. It goes to show you, those guys that come in on Friday, we burnt the car to the ground, they worked till 4:30 in the morning, coming back in on two hours of sleep, got the car qualified, we go out there and win the race. I couldn't ask for a better group of guys. We hang out outside of the racetrack. We eat together. We drink beer together. We hang out together. We're a whole as a group. SCOTT SMITH: Matt, thank you as always for your time. We will see if you can go for a 16-0, get that three in a row at Gainesville next weekend. MATT HAGAN: No problem. Thank you. Take care. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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