ROBERT HIGHT ROCKETS TO TOP FUNNY CAR SPOT AT SOUTHERN NATIONALS

Writen by Tracy Renck, photo by Roger Richards    Sun, 2019-05-05 08:00

 

Nitro Funny Car driver Robert Hight’s amazing start to the 2019 NHRA Mello Series season keeps rolling along.

Hight, in the third qualifying session Saturday, grabbed the No. 1 spot at the 39th annual Arby's NHRA Southern Nationals with a 3.920-second elapsed time at 328.54 mph.

“Going in there we knew we were going to be in the bottom half of the field if we didn’t improve, but Jimmy (Prock, Hight’s crew chief), instead of just making a safe run he put it down and ran what he knew he could run, which was a 3.92,” Hight said. “The confidence level when you're running that good and you push that hard you risk smoking the tires, but they didn’t and they made the run. We were low ET by two hundredths and this wasn’t even the session where we had the best conditions - that should have been last night and we messed that up. It doesn’t get any better than this right now and I don’t want it to go away.”

Hight’s run was crucial since the final qualifying session Saturday was canceled because of rain.

This is the seventh NHRA race of the season and Hight has now accumulated three wins and five No. 1 qualifying positions in his John Force Racing Auto Club Chevy Camaro. He arrived in Atlanta with 142 points to lead the season standings.

This was Hight’s 65th career No. 1 qualifying position. Hight made a huge improvement with his big run Saturday as his two runs Friday were 6.535 seconds and 4.816 second in Q2.

“I feel I don’t want to ever change the way he races because if we change that you are not going to have the same results,” Hight said of Prock. “He will be second-guessing himself and you just have to let him do what he does and so far, how can you argue with what we are doing? We’ve had some times where we have struggled back in 2013 John (Force) switched Jimmy Prock and Mike Neff. I went with Mike Neff and John stayed with Jimmy and we were struggling, but we were trying a lot of different, crazy things at the time. You can watch Jimmy in the staging lanes, sometimes he will act like he’s going to go for the box and stop himself and change his mind. He’s just so wrapped up in his head, but when he’s confident he doesn’t do stuff like that. He figured it out in 2013 and went to win the championship (with John Force). He’s the best out here.

Jimmy is not afraid to change things and try things. Jimmy Prock also will be the first to tell you he has worked under a lot of the greats over the years, Dick LaHaie, Austin Coil, Tim Richards. He’s a student. He really pays attention to a lot of these guys who got us to where we are today and now, they have handed the ball to Jimmy and Jimmy has taken it to the next level.”

Jimmy’s son, Austin, is driving a Top Fuel dragster for JFR this season, but that hasn’t changed the elder Prock’s focus at all, according to Hight.

“I’ve said before, you could light the trailer on fire and Jimmy would not notice it,” Hight said. “A naked girl could run across the track and he’s not going to notice it. He’s so focused on that race car.”

Hight, who has won Funny Car world championships in 2009 and 2017, has had plenty of success in his career in Atlanta. He has 24 round wins, three Wallys and now two No. 1 qualifiers at the facility.

Of the three wins for Hight in Atlanta, two were against teammates Ashley Force Hood in 2010 and Courtney Force in 2014, the first of his three wins came in 2007. Additionally, Hight holds the track record for the quickest pass at 3.880 seconds.

Hight faces Terry Haddock in round one.

 

 
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