Christian Hanger
Christian Hanger has only been involved in racing as a driver for about six years but despite that relative lack of experience compared to many he competes against, he has demonstrated that he has the ability to run up front. And the 24-year-old driver from Winchester, Tennessee hopes to show an even wider range of audiences that very thing throughout the 2021 season. As a matter of fact, he has already shown off his talents during the early part of the 2022 season by scoring a pair of Super Late Model victories.
Looking at the current dirt racing landscape, Hanger believes he knows the best path for himself and his team during the 2022 campaign to gain more experience and to best show off his progression through the ranks of this form of motorsports. He likes the schedule composed by the Chris Tilley-led Valvoline Iron-Man Late Model Series and the flexibility being offered by that tour.
“I think right now we’re going to run the Iron-Man deal,” Hanger told InsideDirtRacing.com. “Their points start up at Smoky Mountain. The plan is to follow that series. I’m not looking forward to going to Bristol too much but Tilley is only going to make us run a couple of races there so that shouldn’t be too bad.”
Particularly appealing to Hanger is that the Iron-Man Series will be contesting a portion of its schedule at the track closest to his base of operations.
“Duck River is having three Iron-Man sanctioned races(two sanctioned and one officiated),” he pointed out. “In my situation with my family owning everything, there’s a good chance of me getting fired if I’m not a Duck River when they have a big race. That helps a lot. I wanted to run the Southern All Stars deal but that just wouldn’t work out for us with the travel we’d have to do. With the Iron-Man shows, there might be one race that’s six hours away and for us, that’s not that bad. With some of the other series we’d have to travel 8-9 hours and it’s just not good for us.”
Hanger has already begun to make his mark this season. After Michael Page was disqualified from the Ice Bowl at Talladega Short Track, the No. 15 team was lifted to the victory. And more recently, victory fell their way in an unsanctioned feature at Duck River Raceway Park. A trip to Florida’s Putnam County Speedway and North Florida Speedway also netted positive results.
“We won the Ice Bowl and we should have got two in Florida where I qualified two times on the pole in that little SpeedWeeks deal and got shuffled on a redraw and started fourth on some one lane tracks,” he explained. “That was bad luck there. It’s part of it because you’re not going to win them all. It’s part of the game and I think everybody has got to play it.”
Because of the fact that it took time for Page’s tire samples to be returned from the lab, Hanger did not find out that he had in fact won the Ice Bowl’s Super Late Model feature until almost a week after the fact.
“I think it was a little bit of redemption,” Hanger recalled. “We won one of those before in the Limited(Late Model) and it got took away from us. It is what it is. I’ve been through a lot controversy in racing. I’ve had a lot of races took away from me and stuff like that. I guess I’ll go down in the history books as the first man to ever win the Ice Bowl sitting on the couch at home.”
As far as being robbed of a victory lane celebration, it was all good.
“It does take away a little bit of it but I guess it’s okay since I still got the check,” he laughed.
The second-generation driver’s arsenal is currently well stocked with the equipment needed to make his presence known.
“We’ve got two Capitals now with Andy Durham power and we like them pretty good,” Hanger stated. “We’ve been having some success. I think we’ve been on the front row or in the top-5 just about everywhere we’ve been in the past six months. I really like the cars.”
Christian Hanger’s No. 15 Capital Race Car
Hanger’s father, Henry Hanger, still takes to the track occasionally. And it is that racing heritage that led to a number change on the son’s cars. This driver who once campaigned in a No. 29 machine now has the No. 15 on his door panels.
“15 was my dad’s number, and he still races open wheels every now and then,” Hanger explained. “He’s been racing for a really long time and now he owns all of our stuff so he asked me to switch to his number just because it’s his number and he owns everything. I don’t have a problem with it. Actually when I first started racing I wanted to have 15 or 115 or some alteration of that. I like it though.”
Months from now when the 2022 season is nearing completion, what does Hanger hope he will have accomplished?
“We need to become dominate. That would be the goal. We want to win some big Super races. We’re competitive right now and we’ve got a good crew behind us, good backing. I think everything is going in the right direction so it’s up to the driver and the maintenance program to carry it.”
Hanger and the rest of the Valvoline Iron-Man Late Model Series will contest their first points-paying race of 2022 on Saturday, March 5th in the Tennessee Tip-Off event co-sanctioned with the Ultimate Super Late Model Series at the Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, Tennessee.
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