What a difference a year makes.

This time last year Robert Hight and the AAA Auto Club Ford Funny Car team were in the midst of a winning streak which would carry them to the 2009 NHRA Funny Car Championship title.

This year, Hight and team are coming off a three race streak of first round losses which have them with their backs against the wall in their quest to successfully defend their 2009 efforts.

Reading is for Hight “do or die. There is no room for error.” There are so many factors which must come together all in one weekend to keep Hight in the championship hunt. "Mathematically, I can win the next three races and do what Cruz Pedregon did in '08 and still not win the championship. There are so many ahead of me right now.”

What a difference a year makes.

This time last year Robert Hight and the AAA Auto Club Ford Funny Car team were in the midst of a winning streak which would carry them to the 2009 NHRA Funny Car Championship title.

This year, Hight and team are coming off a three race streak of first round losses which have them with their backs against the wall in their quest to successfully defend their 2009 efforts.

Reading is for Hight “do or die. There is no room for error.” There are so many factors which must come together all in one weekend to keep Hight in the championship hunt. "Mathematically, I can win the next three races and do what Cruz Pedregon did in '08 and still not win the championship. There are so many ahead of me right now.”

“This is probably the worst start to any Countdown we have ever had,” admitted Hight. “It's frustrating because my car is not running bad.

“In Indy, I still believe we had the best car on the property. I gained points in every single round of qualifying (with the exception of one round). Then we go to Charlotte and break a throttle cable first round. Test on Monday and it was the best test session I've ever had. We were looking forward to going to Dallas. We ended up facing the boss, but it didn't matter. We shook.

“We've dug ourselves a huge hole and the only way out of the hole is to win (the final) three races.”

Being in a hole surprisingly has invigorated Hight and his crew. They've come up with a game plan which starts in Reading and includes banking every point possible up to and including hoisting the Wally at Reading, Las Vegas and Pomona.

“We're going to Reading, the latest we have ever run there, conditions are going to be stellar and you probably are going to see a new national record in Funny Car. Hopefully, it is from the Auto Club Ford. That is our game plan. To go there, collect every single point we can ever run, win that race and then I believe we are back in this deal.

“That is the way Jimmy likes to race and I am excited. Jimmy is very aggressive. He likes to throw down every run; swing for the fence. This is his kind of racing; his conditions and I am excited to be going into Reading.”

Hight feels confident for a couple reasons. One is because he's been in a championship hunt before and prevailed. The second is the team knows clearly what happened in the first three races of the Countdown, right down to why they broke a throttle cable in Charlotte which came as a shock following Force's throttle issue in the final round at Indianapolis.

“John's was a throttle bracket, the bracket that holds the cable and mine actually did snap the throttle cable,” explained Hight. “In all honesty, in both cases it shouldn't have happened. We've got to do a better job as a team in not overlooking those kinds of things. The only way my throttle cable broke was it got mishandled somewhere along the line and didn't get caught. Other than that, it's impossible to break a cable the way I broke it.”

It is those types of failures which must be avoided when a driver is in the throes of a championship battle. The AAA Auto Club crew has had almost two full weeks to go over their car with a fine tooth comb and tighten up their procedures.  

“What my guys have done since we ran last at Dallas is going to determine how we do the next three races,” admitted Hight. “You can't overlook anything. These cars, there is always something to do to them.   Going over ever single detail, every nut, ever bolt, making sure everything is perfect, is a full-time job no matter how many runs you're making.

“In John's case, that cable bracket could have been caught. You can usually look at something that broke and see that it is broken for a while – starting to fail for a while.

“The trick is to not let anything fail. Catch it before it fails. Be proactive. Certain things are going to fail; they're just not strong enough. That is the evolution of this sport. You get to where you beef everything up, making it stronger along the way. Along with more horsepower comes stronger everything – rear ends, drive shafts, wheels. Parts failures can't be avoided.”

Hight learned from veteran tuner Austin Coil is “you learn from mistakes, how things break and how to make them better the next time”.

The same goes for the runs on the race track. When Hight's Ford shook the tires in the first round at Dallas, he was caught slightly off guard.

“It shook a little,” said Hight of his final qualifying run in Dallas. “Q3 was our last qualifying run there and we were trying to get low e.t. again. It went out, shook a little, went through it and it was going hard. We were going to be number one if it had stuck. The early numbers were awesome. Then, it drove the tires off at 400 feet.

“So, I go out there against John first round and Jimmy told me we are going to beat him. We're going to fix this thing so it doesn't smoke the tires at 400 and we are going to beat him. So, I was ready. Next thing I know, I leave the starting line, it shook a little, but it wasn't much different then when it shook the night before. I told myself it would drive through it. When you tell yourself that, then you are late catching it. You have to decide right off the bat if it is too much and pedal it or drive through it. Well, it smoked the tires We were dead. It didn't matter, John made a real nice run. Shaking like that, even if I could have caught it and pedaled it we wouldn't have beat him.

“I was blown away a little bit that it shook that early, We were trying to fix one thing at 400 feet and overlooked what might happen at 60 feet.”

Most people come to the conclusion all of the Force cars are running identical setups. According to Hight, it's been tried, but just hasn't worked the way people think it should, which explains why one team can be running so flawlessly while another struggles.

“You know, being on a multi-car team we've tried over the years to make these cars identical,” explained Hight. “It's just not that easy to do. There are so many different variables. Even if you had exactly the same parts, I mean clutch discs; each one of our cars run a little different clutch pack only because that is what's available and that is what we have. If you could have exactly the same parts, just make them 100 percent clones of each other, there are still little differences - like John's guy setting the clutch versus my guy setting the clutch; or rebuilding the blower - everybody's feel is a little different. Just slight differences everywhere. When you stack up all those differences it makes two or three hundredths of a second.”

Like trying to make the perfect run, there are so many factors which must come together to keep Hight's chances of defending his title. Hight is practical enough to understand that if even on single factor doesn't fall into place he still has a job to do. He still has to do everything he can to bring a championship to John Force Racing.

“I can guarantee you, even though I don't like thinking about it, even if Reading doesn't go the way we plan it to go, then Vegas and Pomona, I'm still going to be on a mission. And, that mission is to help John or Ashley try to win this thing. Let's take out Hagan, take out Beckman; do all I can for my teammates.”

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