The heat index was well over 100 degrees, and Robert Hight was making some unpresidential moves on the phone. Hight made multiple calls, and as he spoke, he was cool as the other side of the pillow despite the beads of sweat dripping from his face. 

No, he wasn’t inking deals in his role as President of John Force Racing. Nor was he interviewing with the dozens of media members who call him seeking insight into one of drag racing’s most iconic multi-car teams. 

Hight was, instead, knee-deep and sweating profusely, trying to find an air filter for the rig that pulls his hauler. Sure, he could have delegated the assignment to one of the dozens of crewmembers on his team. Instead, Hight was being Hight. 

“Somebody’s got to do it,” Hight said. “It’s part of the job. And we got two races in a row here, and we got to have our equipment ready to go up to Brainerd. So if I can pitch in and help, I’m glad to.”

When reminded that Presidents don’t usually handle those tasks, he countered without hesitation, “I don’t need a title. Just try to help wherever I can.”

Adaptation is one of Hight’s strong suits and has worked in his favor since he joined John Force Racing for the first time in the 1990s at the then Heartland Park - Topeka facility.

“I think that’s any part of racing and being a racer; you got to do whatever it takes,” Hight explained. “Doesn’t matter what it is. It takes the whole ball of wax, the whole picture, to make it all happen and come together. And I think any good racer is going to jump in and do whatever they can to get the job done at the end of the day.”

Adaptation isn’t just in performing tasks, as Hight will attest. It’s in understanding that drag racing sometimes swings like a pendulum. There are moments when Hight’s team can do no wrong and others where he’s scratching his head, wondering, “What the hell just happened?”

“That’s us right now,” Hight admitted. “You nailed it right on the head. We’re a lot of early round exits. We’re working on a little different combination, and I think we’re getting closer. We went to that match race in Norwalk and started to show some promise, which Jimmy felt, leaving the last race in Sonoma, that it was close. We don’t have much consistency, but we’re working on it. And he feels it’s him, not the combination; it’s him.”

The combination was working just fine for Hight and Prock as together they worked together to secure the driver’s 80th No. 1 qualifying effort at the Menards NHRA Nationals just hours after Hight was completing his search for the rig’s air filter.

It all goes back to Hight’s upbringing in the sport, as he’s a throwback of sorts in the sport, one of those guys who makes stuff happen and doesn’t wear a white shirt to the track.

“There’s a lot of those guys still out here, the Dale Pulde’s, the Mark Oswald’s, all those guys that can jump in and do literally anything on the race car and make it happen,” Hight said. “A lot of respect for them. It’s fun to watch guys like that. That’s probably when it was maybe a little less pressure and a little more fun than it is today. 

“I probably couldn’t hold a candle to those guys, to be honest with you. I wasn’t around these cars as a young kid growing up. I learned about mechanics and ended up learning about these cars as a crew member with Austin Coil and Bernie Fedderly and those guys, and then eventually drove. But later on in life, I could probably hold my own, but as a young guy, no, I can’t hold my own with those guys. They’ve been doing it all their lives, and they’re really good at it, and it was fun to watch them.”

Hight became seasoned as a crewmember under Coil. But could he have driven for him in the Chi-Town Hustler days?

“You hear Frank Hawley talk about that,” Hight said. “Man, that was a tough gig. But I’ll be honest with you; it was also a tough gig working under Austin Coil as a crew member. He demanded perfection, and that’s how you win all those championships. We had the mindset of going to every race that we were going to win, and we were bummed when we didn’t win. So that was the mindset, and the only way you do that is by perfection. Boy, I don’t know. As a driver for him, he was brutal, but they also won championships, so how can you knock his style?”

Coil’s style or lessons, Hight adds, is what prompted him to get on the phone and start looking for an air filter. It also led him to be an 80-time No. 1 qualifier,  63-time national event winner, and a three-time champion.