Robert Hight hasn’t driven his Funny Car two feet in 2009 and he can already tell a major difference from last year. The veteran driver for John Force Racing spent much of his time during the off-season fine-tuning a proven combination instead of developing one.

This off-season has been spent solely focusing on what it takes to win a championship; a regular practice before the disasters of 2007. Separate horrific crashes of Eric Medlen and John Force challenged JFR to build safer Funny Cars for the future between 2007 and 2008. Those challenges also put the team behind the eight-ball.

Hight has all the hard work behind him as he enters 2009 on a mission to win his first ever NHRA Funny Car world championship.

“I think we are in better shape as far as going out and contending for a championship and winning races because last year was so chaotic,” Hight admitted. “Last year, a week before we went testing in January, we were still putting together all the cars that we had completely redesigned. It was a total redesign of the chassis after all the accidents we had in ’07. At that point, performance and winning races wasn’t really the focus.

 

 

Robert Hight hasn’t driven his Funny Car two feet in 2009 and he can already tell a major difference from last year. The veteran driver for John Force Racing spent much of his time during the off-season fine-tuning a proven combination instead of developing one.

This off-season has been spent solely focusing on what it takes to win a championship; a regular practice before the disasters of 2007. Separate horrific crashes of Eric Medlen and John Force challenged JFR to build safer Funny Cars for the future between 2007 and 2008. Those challenges also put the team behind the eight-ball.

Hight has all the hard work behind him as he enters 2009 on a mission to win his first ever NHRA Funny Car world championship.

“I think we are in better shape as far as going out and contending for a championship and winning races because last year was so chaotic,” Hight admitted. “Last year, a week before we went testing in January, we were still putting together all the cars that we had completely redesigned. It was a total redesign of the chassis after all the accidents we had in ’07. At that point, performance and winning races wasn’t really the focus.

“This year we are still focused on safety, we haven’t put that on the back burner at all, but we are also looking at where we needed to improve in ’09 from ’08. What was the main problem that we all faced? We have put all our heads together, all the crew chiefs and focus on being more competitive and getting back on top, which is where we believe we belong.”

For the past three seasons, Hight has pushed the championship title to the final race of the season. He may not have won a championship, but all three times he walked away feeling that he could have won the titles if not for breaks earlier in the year. Hight knows the key to getting those breaks will be to lead the point standings at the crucial points of the season.

“It is a consistent run to be on the cusp three straight years, but it also goes back to the fact that we need to be in the driver’s seat come the last race of the year,” Hight said. “We need to be the guy that everyone else is chasing and not have to wait until the last day to catch up or be right there to win. We want to lock this thing up early. It will take a lot of hard work and a lot of technology to be successful. In fact, Ford was at the shop last week working with us on a new program that should help us with our consistency, our performance and ultimately win races.”

Hight knows this season will be one of the toughest on record.

“I still think Funny Car will be the class to watch for competition. I think there will be a lot of different winners and even with the tough economic times I think Funny Car will be the strongest class because there should be 18-20 good cars every week and that means there will be a good car sitting out on Sunday.”