Race Day with the Tony Stewart Racing Dodge Charger Funny Car

Spending a day in the pit area of Matt Hagan’s Dodge Charger funny car was an unforgettable experience.

A few weeks back, the NHRA Camping World Championship Drag Racing Series headed to Norwalk, Ohio for the Summit Racing Equipment Nationals and the folks from Dodge invited me to drive down from Michigan to spend a day with Tony Stewart Racing. To be more specific, I was invited to spend Friday with the team, so I was there for the first day of qualifying.

The Tony Stewart Racing Pits

If you have never been to an NHRA event, the series offers fans far greater access than any other professional motorsports association, allowing them to get a close look at the team in action in the pits and often, a chance to meet their favorite drivers. Just being at an NHRA event presents an incredible experience, since fans are permitted to be so close to everything, but as a guest of Dodge, I got to go into the actual pit area for Tony Stewart Racing. The TSR area includes Matt Hagan’s pit area and Leah Pruett’s pit area with a large hospitality tent in the middle of the two.

That hospitality tent was where our small group of four journalists had lunch with Hagan’s team and Pruett’s team before the first round of qualifying, but unlike the other folks in the TSR tent, we were permitted to go into the actual pit stalls of Hagan and Pruett, provided that we stayed out of their way. This allowed us to stand a few feet away as the two teams prepared the cars for the first round of qualifying, complete with the warm-up for each car.

Seeing an NHRA Top Fuel Funny Car warm up from the outside of the pit stall is exciting, but being in the pit stall, a few feet from the car, in the area under the awning filled with nitro methane fumes was nothing short of incredible. In fact, the fumes were too much for the other members of the media on hand and they rushed for fresh air outside of the pit stall, but I stood by for the whole process, leading to great footage of the action.

Touring the Trailer

Before Matt Hagan’s team got the car fired up and ready for track time, car chief Alex Conaway gave us a tour of his trailer. Technically, his “trailer” at the track is two trailers parked side by side, connected with a pop-out hallway of sorts. The trailers have two tiers, with the race car and the extra car stored upstairs while the downstairs portions are split up into a series of dedicated work areas. There is a rotating assembly area, a cylinder head area, a clutch area, a supercharger area and more.

Between those work spaces there were huge cabinets, filled with whatever is worked on in the adjoining area. There are cabinets full of pistons and connecting rods, cabinets full of clutch parts and cabinets full of cylinder heads – like 8 sets of them. There is even a cabinet with extra superchargers and manifolds, along with a full machine shop at the front of one trailer. Basically, every part that the team could need to get the car on the track, and every tool needed to work on those parts, are located in the two huge trailers.

After the tour of the trailer, the warm-up process and lunch, we headed out to the track with Hagan’s team for the first round of qualifying. We got to stand trackside to watch the funny car class run, and I am not talking about sitting in the stands alongside the track. We were on the surface, leaning on the wall that runs along the burnout box. We were close enough that we were covered with bits of molten rubber, allowing us to experience a bunch of top fuel launches from a few feet away. It is loud from anywhere in the track, but to be a few feet away, standing on the same piece of pavement as the 12,000 horsepower race car, provides an unforgettable experience.

Hagan ran a 4.07 at 310, so it wasn’t the best run for his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye funny car, but it was still an amazing run to watch from a few feet away.

While I had advanced access, I saw countless fans talk to Hagan, Pruett and Tony Stewart along with scores of folks who were nearby for every car in the class warming up. If you enjoy NHRA drag racing, make sure that you attend an event at some point, as you get close-up access like no other form of professional racing. You will love drag racing even more when you leave.

Photos: Patrick Rall

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Patrick Rall

"Before I was old enough to walk, my dad was taking me to various types of racing events, from local drag racing to the Daytona 500," says Patrick Rall, a lifetime automotive expert, diehard Dodge fan, and respected auto journalist for over 10 years. "He owned a repair shop and had a variety of performance cars when I was young, but by the time I was 16, he was ready to build me my first drag car – a 1983 Dodge Mirada that ran low 12s. I spent 10 years traveling around the country, racing with my dad by my side. While we live in different areas of the country, my dad still drag races at 80 years old in the car that he built when I was 16 while I race other vehicles, including my 2017 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and my 1972 Dodge Demon 340.

"Although I went to college for accounting, my time in my dad’s shop growing up allowed me the knowledge to spend time working as a mechanic before getting my accounting degree, at which point I worked in the office of a dealership group. While I was working in the accounting world, I continued racing and taking pictures of cars at the track. Over time, I began showing off those pictures online and that led to my writing.

"Ten years ago, I left the accounting world to become a full-time automotive writer and I am living proof that if you love what you do, you will never “work” a day in your life," adds Rall, who has clocked in time as an auto mechanic, longtime drag racer and now automotive journalist who contributes to nearly a dozen popular auto websites dedicated to fellow enthusiasts.

"I love covering the automotive industry and everything involved with the job. I was fortunate to turn my love of the automotive world into a hobby that led to an exciting career, with my past of working as a mechanic and as an accountant in the automotive world provides me with a unique perspective of the industry.

"My experience drag racing for more than 20 years coupled with a newfound interest in road racing over the past decade allows me to push performance cars to their limit, while my role as a horse stable manager gives me vast experience towing and hauling with all of the newest trucks on the market today.

"Being based on Detroit," says Rall, "I never miss the North American International Auto Show, the Woodward Dream Cruise and Roadkill Nights, along with spending plenty of time raising hell on Detroit's Woodward Avenue with the best muscle car crowd in the world.

Rall can be contacted at QuickMirada@Yahoo.com

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