Matt Hagan's exploding Funny Car has gone viral. (1 Viewer)

[Bigfishtools dot com]

Matt Hagan's exploding Funny Car has gone viral. And Hagan is receiving far more attention for blowing up than he did for winning the NHRA championship last year.

The ESPN video of Hagan's incredible exploding car has received more than 19 million views worldwide, according to Don Schumacher Racing officials.

The car went kaboom during qualifying for the Four-Wide Nationals last weekend at zMax Dragway in Concord, N.C.

If you haven't seen it, take a look. It's a shocker as racing car explosions go, even topping Juan Pablo Montoya's jet dryer collision in the Daytona 500 earlier this year that caused a towering firebomb.

Hagan has made appearances this week on "Good Morning America" and the "Today Show." He had a TV interview with the BBC on Thursday morning. Hagan said he was told the video of his accident was the second-most viewed item on the BBC website behind the story about Dick Clark's death.
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[DrRocket]

I wonder why???

I mean, there've been other FC body shredding explosions as bad as that before?

 

[Bigfishtools dot com]

I have no clue but you know Aaron's is lovin it!

 

[Bullard Anderson]

I passes for motorsports coverage these days with the biggies, cause NASCAR has dropped off that 1st tier radar.

 

[Chris]

I have no clue but you know Aaron's is lovin it!

Lol before their 8,000 hp billboard exploded.

 

[indidad- The Guy- Uncle Steve]

I don't know just how to feel about this. It has been said that any publicity is good publicity and NHRA can sure use the exposure, but I would rather it be for a record run rather than a catastrophic event.

Glad Matt is ok, it could have been worse.

 

[Toejam]

I wonder why???

I mean, there've been other FC body shredding explosions as bad as that before?

Remember how much media play Tony Pedregon's at Pomona in '08 got? He was even on GMA!

 

[DrRocket]

Remember how much media play Tony Pedregon's at Pomona in '08 got? He was even on GMA!

You're right. I'd completely forgotten about that!

Gettin' old sucks!!

Every time I learn something new, something else gets shoved out of my head.

 

[Paul]

I have no clue but you know Aaron's is lovin it!

They had similar exposure back in 2008 in Texas when their NASCAR team had a massive crash in qualifying.

Michael McDowell Texas Qualifying Crash - YouTube

 

[mikey]

I just went to msnbc.com, and its on the front page right next to the top story

 

[rckymtn3]

This is pretty-much SOP isn't it?

Even racing media, Drag rags included, always fit in the explosion shots...

Two types of people, ones that feel awful at the loss of costly parts, the loss of man hours, the possibility they might not qualify, not to mention the potential danger to the driver....and then there's the folks that clap when there's a big fireball, because no matter what they say, there's people that LOVE wrecks and explosions, and feel satisfied when they witness one...

 

[FC138fan]

Seeing explosions like that makes me marvel more at the power these things have and the engineering that has gone into it. They take all that chemical energy and channel it into those 8 cylinders where they ignite it, resulting in an outrageous amount of mechanical energy and heat energy, where that heat energy then gets channeled out the headers, while the mechanical energy then goes though the crank, the clutch, the gears, and gets applied to the track.

Just think about taking that explosion and confining it to 500 cubic inches. Wonder if theres some sort of conversion to equate the energy burned in a top fuel run into lbs. of TNT - similar to converting a nuclear blast into kilotons, or megatons. Wonder if you would get a ton of TNT out of a run.

As I skew off onto a thought... say you have 500 cubic inches in that motor, so every cycle of a compression stroke you get 500 cubic inches. Times that by how many compression strokes you get in a run.. take that volume , compress it to whatever compression ratio you are running and ignite it all at once. How big of an explosion would that be?

 

[Toejam]

You're right. I'd completely forgotten about that!

Gettin' old sucks!!

Every time I learn something new, something else gets shoved out of my head.

How much free advertising did Fram get when Cory Mac's crash at Bristol get played Over and Over??

 

[Percboy]

"...destroyed a $75,000 race car."
Can you even buy a stock eliminator car for that kinda cash?

 

[Rat]

I don't know just how to feel about this. It has been said that any publicity is good publicity and NHRA can sure use the exposure, but I would rather it be for a record run rather than a catastrophic event.

Glad Matt is ok, it could have been worse.

It's been that way for years, the general population has never heard of the NHRA and/or know little to nothing about it. No one cares about a record run becuase it means nothing to people who do not understand what the record means or how incredible the record is.

Robert Hight wins 4 in a row, to the general pop 4 sounds low and it sounds easy. Drag racing fans know 4 in a row is hard to do and does not happen often. Marketable? No, sportscenter does not want this.

Someone blew up violently and it looks really cool? The people who don't even know wtf a funny car is and never seen it before today, they want it. A video of something explosive happened is gonna get far more attention than just a sunday drive normal type of run.

 

[robinjackson]

Allow me to re-post what I said on the other thread about this.

(Written Thursday
It's getting remarkable coverage here in the UK. Just been watching the BBC News-24 Channel -- a phone interview with Matt himself (that's a first, an NHRA racer on UK television!) in which he came over very well indeed.

Then an interview with a safety expert from the Top Gear TV show who was very complimentary about both car & driver safety standards -- and about Matt's handling skill -- and the swiftness of the Safety Safari response.

All in all, very positive international coverage for NHRA, and incredibly rare ever to see such stuff on our mainstream TV.

 

[Toejam]

Allow me to re-post what I said on the other thread about this.

(Written Thursday
It's getting remarkable coverage here in the UK. Just been watching the BBC News-24 Channel -- a phone interview with Matt himself (that's a first, an NHRA racer on UK television!) in which he came over very well indeed.

Then an interview with a safety expert from the Top Gear TV show who was very complimentary about both car & driver safety standards -- and about Matt's handling skill -- and the swiftness of the Safety Safari response.

All in all, very positive international coverage for NHRA, and incredibly rare ever to see such stuff on our mainstream TV.

Robin, you should see if you can get the link of it!

 

[JON]

Allow me to re-post what I said on the other thread about this.

(Written Thursday
It's getting remarkable coverage here in the UK. Just been watching the BBC News-24 Channel -- a phone interview with Matt himself (that's a first, an NHRA racer on UK television!) in which he came over very well indeed.

Then an interview with a safety expert from the Top Gear TV show who was very complimentary about both car & driver safety standards -- and about Matt's handling skill -- and the swiftness of the Safety Safari response.

All in all, very positive international coverage for NHRA, and incredibly rare ever to see such stuff on our mainstream TV.

+1 : It's good GLOBAL, sponsor-impressing stuff, whichever way you look at it.

 

[robinjackson]

Robin, you should see if you can get the link of it!

I have tried, but it was on the BBC's rolling news channel and I couldn't find it. Only the piece of NHRA/ESPN stock footage that has already appeared on many TV channels.

I'll look again and post it if I find it.

 

[Toejam]

LEts Hope these Viral Videos don't start spreading Viruses! Or we will be in trouble!