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Robert Hight and the Auto Club Ford Mustang are peaking at the right time. Today at the luxurious zMax Dragway Hight defeated rookie of the front runner Matt Hagan to take his first win of the 2009 season and jump from 10th in the Full Throttle point standing to 3rd. The perennial championship contender made the Countdown to 1 in the No. 10 position by racing to the final round of the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals and today he defeated veteran Jerry Toliver, fellow Mustang driver Bob Tasca III, and teammate Ashley Force Hood to reach the finals with Hagan. Hight’s journey to the winner’s circle was definitely not a straight path.
“It’s been a crazy month. With all the switching we did with me going to John’s – team owner John Force - car and vice versa. It has been crazy. But for whatever reason, it has worked out. John Force, he’s not a tuner, but he definitely knows how to shake things up and whatever he did, it’s worked. Jimmy Prock, since John drove his car in Maple Grove, it’s been almost the best car out there. John could have gone to the final there in Maple Grove,” said Hight. “At Indy, racing Ashley, it’s unbelievable the timing we’ve got right now. The first part of the year, we stunk this place up. It was terrible. You begin to wonder, you know, if you can win because winning these races out here, it’s not that easy to win. Every round, I had somebody in the other lane clear to the finish line and you know, if you’re a little late, if something happens, any little thing, you’re gonna lose.”
“The last two rounds I had today were just unbelievably close races. My teammate, Ashley Force Hood, and then Matt Hagan, who hopefully he gets the Rookie-of-the-Year because he does a great job and it’s not easy to drive these Funny Cars.”
It was an emotional win for Hight and one that was truly a team effort going back four races when Castrol GTX co-crew chiefs Dean Antonelli and Ron Douglas began working with Jimmy Prock on converting Hight’s Mustang to a set-up more consistent with Ashley Force Hood’s Mustang that had been consistently going rounds all season.
“Definitely, (a lot of our success) is due to Guido and Ron Douglas. Right before Brainerd, we switched everything around, like their car. They’ve helped us tremendously. They’ve given Jimmy something to go with and before our engine would burn up. It would drop cylinders. We were totally inconsistent. So now we have a car like Ashley’s had all year long. Luckily Ashley’s been running good all year because she’s taken care of the sponsors for us and all the people that pay us because we couldn’t do it without their help,” added Hight.
By reaching the semi-finals in the first Countdown to 1 event Force Hood moved around Ron Capps and all but erased the cushion points leader Tony Pedregon started the day with. At the end of the day Force Hood was a mere one point out of the Full Throttle points lead in her bid to become the first woman to win a Funny Car world championship.
“The race was definitely not a bad weekend. A lot of the top contenders struggled a little and we were able to do a little better and move from third to second. It will all change around. If we can start out strong then we give ourselves a little advantage. Our Mustang is running really well. We didn’t have any lucky runs,” said the seven-time finalist in 2009. “Out of seven runs this weekend six of them were really good. If we can run like that through the Countdown I think that could be pretty unstoppable. It is not that easy to get these cars to go A to B. Ron and Guido (co crew chiefs Ron Douglas and Dean Antonelli) make it look easy. It was a really good weekend. You always want to win but I cannot complain about anything. That semi-final round with Robert that was how we wanted to tune it and run it.”
