2019 was a banner year for Robert Hight and John Force Racing (JFR).

Hight raced to a season-high six wins and his third NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series championship that year, all while leading the standings - with the exception of a single race at the beginning of the Countdown to the Championship - wire-to-wire.

And then the pandemic happened.

JFR sat out the 2020 season and then returned in 2021 to mixed results. The team struggled with a lack of consistency, none more so than Hight who saw wins and chart-topping passes sandwiched between early round exits. The ordeal led to an eighth place finish for Hight, his worst finish since 2016.

With disappointing results and little to show for the team over the past two years, Hight and crew chiefs Jimmy Prock and Chris Cunningham went to work in the offseason doing what they do best - going back to the basics.

“My team worked over the winter looking at what we did in 2021 and how that went so bad,” Hight said. “We had no consistency. We could throw down a few times, we won a couple of races, but we had no consistency. Basically, we went back to our whole clutch setup that we ran in 2019 when we ran away with the field.

“You look back on it and think, ‘why did we ever switch?’ But it is just Jimmy Prock and Chris Cunningham trying new things, trying to get better all of the time. In this sport, a lot of times those things don’t work. If you try 10 things, maybe two will work. But if you don’t try them, you don’t know and you don’t learn. And so far so good.”

Hight came out of the gate swinging to start the 2022 campaign, placing his Auto Club Camaro first on the charts with a 3.882-second pass at 330.39 miles per hour Friday at the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals presented by ProtectTheHarvest.com at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.

A four-time Winternationals champion, Hight is looking to mimic the 2019 season in more ways than one, last winning the season-opening race in California during that championship-winning year.

“I am chomping at the bit. I know we have everything in place (to win a championship). Since Jimmy Prock came back here, in 2017 we won, in 2018 we were runner-up and in 2019 we won. After that, it was kind of a mess,” Hight said. “But we have everything in place to do that again. I know the competition is tough, but it was tough in 2017 and 2019 as well. We are all focused and ready to get this done.”

Slotting in behind Hight on the ladder after one qualifying round is Matt Hagan driving in his first race for Tony Stewart. Hagan drove his Dodge Power Brokers Charger to a 3.886 at 329.34 mph, just .004-second off the leaders pace.

Defending series champion Ron Capps was third in his NAPA machine with a 3.903 at 328.30 mph, while Alexis DeJoria (3.945) and J.R. Todd (3.985) rounded out the top five.

Hight explained that a successful weekend of testing one week ago in Phoenix added to the team’s confidence and helped pave the way for the team’s decision to return to a more familiar tuneup.

“We tested well last week and, more than anything, we made a lot of really great runs down the track,” Hight said. “I couldn’t wait to get here and see if we could do it again at Pomona. In that first run, it was just confidence for the team. Jimmy Prock, you can tell when he is confident. He is not in that box all of the time. He is not making a lot of last minute changes. It is set it and forget it. And that is what he did today.

“He went off what we had in Phoenix and I think there is still more left. He said it stumbled a cylinder tonight, so that hurt it a little bit and it will do better than that. We were No. 1 here in the fall, we ran better than everybody in qualifying, and we went out there and lost first round. It is just one run at a time and four on Sunday and then we can get excited.”

If his time holds on Saturday, it will be the 72nd career No. 1 qualifier for Hight who grew up coming to this track as a child. And he believes, with his John Force Racing team back to full strength and collectively testing well in Phoenix, that big things are ahead for this team.

“It showed in testing as all of our cars ran well,” Hight said. “I think it shows that we are in a good place. All of the teams are working well together and that is how you win a championship.”