Robert Hight had a streak of good fortune end with this weekend's visit to The Strip at Las Vegas. Since 2005, Hight has been able to win at least one race in the first five races of the season. That stat tumbled to the ground with a semi-final loss to eventual winner Ron Capps. Even with the streak ended, Hight was upbeat about the future.

“Today was a lot better than the last two races," Hight said. "I am upbeat about our Auto Club of Southern California Mustang because it is definitely tunable. We just need a few more runs and I think we are there. Yesterday in qualifying we made two good runs. We stepped up. We have all the old stuff back on it. We have a new chassis. It is working well,” said the former JFR crewman. “I am definitely excited about that. We are going to test here tomorrow and use one of our four days. We’ll see if we can’t get it to where we want it. This is a great race track and they do a good job. I’m looking forward to testing.”

Robert Hight had a streak of good fortune end with this weekend's visit to The Strip at Las Vegas. Since 2005, Hight has been able to win at least one race in the first five races of the season. That stat tumbled to the ground with a semi-final loss to eventual winner Ron Capps. Even with the streak ended, Hight was upbeat about the future.

“Today was a lot better than the last two races," Hight said. "I am upbeat about our Auto Club of Southern California Mustang because it is definitely tunable. We just need a few more runs and I think we are there. Yesterday in qualifying we made two good runs. We stepped up. We have all the old stuff back on it. We have a new chassis. It is working well,” said the former JFR crewman. “I am definitely excited about that. We are going to test here tomorrow and use one of our four days. We’ll see if we can’t get it to where we want it. This is a great race track and they do a good job. I’m looking forward to testing.”

Hight’s path to the semi-finals included a second round match-up with team leader John Force. They had met ten times previously with a 5-5 record and Hight took his career mark versus the 14-time champion to 6-5 with his third consecutive round win over Force. In the first round Hight had a minor incident that Hight’s crew chief Jimmy Prock was able to work around by round two.

“The first round we had a nozzle stick so it didn’t open. It burnt number five up real early in the run then it dropped a cylinder and then it pushed the head gaskets out. It was a mess,” said Hight. “That was a lucky one. Second round it was just kind of slow against John. Jimmy tried to tune it up and it really didn’t change it early. It was still slow early. When the clutch came together it spun.” 

Advertisement