ROBERT HIGHT

President, John Force Racing/Driver of the Auto Club Ford Mustang

Robert “Top Gun” Hight packed an entire career into his first six seasons at the controls of the Auto Club of Southern California Ford Mustang, a 315 mile-an-hour Funny Car in which he posted the quickest competitive times at both the quarter mile and 1,000 foot drag racing distances (4.636 and 4.005 seconds, respectively).

The thing that keeps both Hight and his rivals awake most nights, however, is the fact that, despite all his success, the former world class marksman has yet to put together a complete season in the NHRA Full Throttle Series.

He’s started poorly and finished well as he did in 2009 when he claimed his first Full Throttle championship by winning three of six races in the Countdown to 1 playoffs.

Conversely, he has started well and finished poorly as he did last year when, after claiming a career-high four victories during the season’s first 17 races, he failed to win a single round during the Countdown and finished eighth.

This year, the goal of the new President of John Force Racing, Inc., is to combine last year’s start with the previous season’s finish. It’s a formula that could produce the kind of domination previously enjoyed only by Force himself.

Already the first driver in any category to win multiple events in his first six pro seasons, Hight can further add to his legacy by extending that current streak which would make him just the ninth Funny Car driver to win 20 times on the NHRA pro tour.

Hight stepped out of the shadows and into the spotlight, quite literally, in 2005.

Although he had no previous driving experience in any racing discipline, he reached the winners’ circle just the fourth time he was buckled into the Auto Club Ford.

He finished that first season as the winner of the Auto Club’s Road to the Future Award which designates the NHRA Rookie of the Year and he has never looked back.

Although his 2009 title run was a career-maker, Hight probably should have won the championship in 2007. That was the year that he withdrew from the race at Houston, Texas, following a testing accident that claimed the life of friend and teammate Eric Medlen. He wound up losing the championship by a mere 19 points.

“I can’t give John enough credit,” Hight said of his teammate and father-in-law, John Force. “He took a chance on a guy from northern California that had never driven anything but a Ford F-150 truck. He sold me to all the sponsors. He put me with the very best people and it’s been a dream come true.

“Now, to entrust me with what he has created here at JFR is just unbelievable,” Hight said. “He taught us and we’ll carry on and we will win more championships.”

Force may have provided the resources for racing success, but Hight insured the results. In his first six years, he started the Auto Club Ford from the front of the Funny Car pack 38 times, more often than anyone except Hall of Famers Force (134) and Kenny Bernstein (50).

After toiling in relative obscurity for 10 seasons at JFR, first as a crew member on Force’s Castrol GTX Funny Cars and later as manager of the team’s California shop facility, Hight was ready when opportunity knocked. Now, he is hoping to secure the team’s 18th series title in the last 22 seasons. It has been a rocket ride for the tenacious, but soft-spoken Californian who developed an interest in all things mechanical working with his father.

By the time he was 16, he already had restored a Plymouth Belvedere, a car that would serve as transportation to college in Sacramento, where he earned AA degrees in both business and accounting while working at Tognotti’s Speed Shop.

Upon graduation, Hight began looking for career opportunities in drag racing. After starting as a Top Fuel dragster mechanic for Roger Primm Racing, he fumbled his first opportunity with Team Force because of opposition from his family.

Fortunately, he got a second chance and took over as clutch technician on Force’s Castrol GTX hybrid midway through the 1995 season, celebrating in the winners’ circle after his first week on the job. It’s a habit that’s been hard to break.

While Hight was winning big on the racetrack, he was doing even better off it. What began as a friendship with Force’s oldest daughter, Adria, slowly blossomed into a full blown romance. The two were married in 1999 and, in 2004, Adria gave birth to a daughter, Autumn Danielle Hight, who today is her daddy’s biggest fan. Ironically, Hight’s commitment to his racing career almost ended the relationship before it began.

“She would see a light on (at the shop) and stop to talk,” he said of his wife, the Chief Financial Officer at JFR. “She asked me to do things with her, but I wouldn’t.

“I was afraid I’d get in trouble because John made a point of reminding all the crew that dating his daughters was off limits,” Hight explained. “Finally, she told (her dad) and he came over to me and said, ‘Hey, if you want to hang out with Adria, don’t worry about it. You’re not going to get in any trouble.’”

It was just the re-assurance he needed.

Although he always nurtured the dream of driving a race car, Hight never believed the opportunity would present itself. It’s a perception that changed when Force opted to give Medlen a chance to drive the Castrol SYNTEC Ford that had been vacated by Tony Pedregon after he won a championship for JFR in 2003.

Ultimately, Medlen’s driving success provided validity to Force’s “Next Generation” initiative. In fact, Hight credits Medlen, a six-time tour winner, with helping him through an exceedingly successful rookie season.

If there was a victim of Hight’s total commitment to his racing career, it was his “other life” as a marksman.

One of a small number of shooters to have achieved the Grand Slam of marksmanship – 200 straight targets at the standard 16-yard distance, 100 straight at the maximum handicap distance (27 yards) and 100 doubles (two targets at once) in the same competition – he was good enough to be considered for a berth on the U.S. Olympic team.

Although he didn’t pursue the opportunity, he has applied the sport’s hand-eye coordination and concentration skills to his driving.

“I definitely think that dealing with the pressure of shooting helped (my driving),” Hight said. “The thing that surprised me, I guess, was that the pressure in racing is a lot more intense. In shooting, if you screw up, basically the only person you hurt is yourself. But when you screw up in the race car, you’re not just letting yourself down, you’re letting down everyone else on the team. That’s real pressure.”

Like so many American youngsters, Hight grew up dreaming of a career in baseball. Although he never played professionally, his drag racing success has provided him with an opportunity to meet some of his baseball idols, notably former Los Angeles Dodgers’ manager Tommy Lasorda, and to drive a special edition Auto Club Ford that commemorated the Dodgers’ 50th anniversary in Los Angeles.