There are plenty of cheesy sayings about not giving up.

If at first you don’t succeed. When the going gets tough. Winners never quit.

Of course, when three-time Funny Car world champion Robert Hight finds himself behind the eight ball, he has his own mantra to help him make it through a tough race weekend - when you have Jimmy Prock in your corner, you are never truly out of it.

After struggling during the opening two days of the Virginia NHRA Nationals, Hight and his team dug deep and found a new level of performance as Hight battled through a tough field of Funny Car competitors to collect a class-leading third win of the season Sunday at Virginia Motorsports Park.

“What a difference a day makes,” Hight said. “I’ve said it a million times, your first run of the weekend is the most important. We had a mechanical failure our first run and it set us behind the entire weekend. But when you have this Auto Club group like I do, this core team that has been with me for a lot of years, and you have Jimmy Prock and Chris Cunningham, you just believe in them. You believe the next run is going to be low ET, they’ve got it fixed and we are on our way. And that is exactly what happened today.”

Coming into race day looking up from the bottom half of the ladder in 10th, Hight navigated a tricky track and an even trickier lineup on his way to a much-anticipated final round against top qualifier Matt Hagan. While Hagan proved the quickest during the first two days of competition, Hight and his John Force Racing team flexed their muscle when it mattered most with a race-winning 3.907-second pass at 328.86 mph in the final round. With the win, Hight climbed to within a handful of points of his rival for the Funny Car championship lead and picked up the 56th victory of his career behind the wheel of his Auto Club of Southern California Chevrolet Camaro.

Hagan crossed the stripe in the runner-up position with a 3.948 at 327.59 mph in his Smithfield/Tony Stewart Racing Dodge.

Already this season Hagan and Hight have tussled multiple times on the race track as the top two drivers in NHRA points continue to trade blows.

“We’ve had a few battles already this year with Hagan. It is just going to happen every week I think. We honestly have the two best cars and when you race those guys you better be up for it,” Hight said. “They were better than us in qualifying and they were the car to beat. This was a tricky track for a lot of people because in qualifying it was very cool every run and today that was not the case. We had a hot race track and my team navigated and dealt with it better than everybody else. We just have to keep winning these little battles. At the end, that is when you win the war.”

In the first trip to Virginia Motorsports Park since 2019, wet weather and varying temperatures left many of the teams scrambling throughout the weekend. On Sunday, hot and steamy conditions led to a number of cars in other categories, mainly Top Fuel, struggling to make it down the track. As Hight watched his peers go up in smoke during the first round of eliminations, he knew he needed to keep his cool when it was his turn to survive and advance.

“It was worse for me because I was the seventh pair. I had a lot of cars to listen to and pay attention to,” Hight said. “Truthfully, if you focus on having to pedal this thing, do you know what is going to happen next? You are going to be late on the tree. You’ve got to take it one step at a time. You’ve got to leave the starting line and then react. Whatever the car throws at you you have to react and do your best.”

That point was made all the more clear in a first round matchup with Tim Wilkerson. The pair produced a great opening round tilt, producing the lowest and third lowest elapsed times of the round, with Hight advancing on a 3.919 at 329.83 mph. Wilkerson had a 3.942, 325.92 mph in the losing effort.

“You have to be up for every round. The competition in this class is unlike anything there has ever been. Racing Tim Wilkerson in the first round, that guy is lethal. He is a great driver with a great car. When you are seeing cars smoking the tires it makes you nervous, but if you back it off too much he’s got you. There is nothing on the other side of that line I can control. I can only control my car and my team. That is how Jimmy races. He doesn’t push extra hard because he is racing Dickie or anyone. If we keep that mentality we are going to have a lot of wins.”

Hight added wins over a tire-smoking Ron Capps in round two and dispatched Bob Tasca in the semifinals with a 3.906 to Tasca’s 4.015.

Hagan had wins over Chad Green and John Force to reach his fifth final round of the year.

With the pair of Funny Car competitors now owning five of the season’s seven Wally trophies, it appears that favorites have already been established in the class with 15 races still to go.

“When you race Hagan you have to be on your game,” Hight said. “We are going to have a lot of these battles throughout the year. It is only a few points separating us, hopefully we go to Epping and get this points lead back.”