ROBERT HIGHT
‘Top Gun’ Poised to Clear Last Hurdle            

Since emerging in 2005 as one of the purest natural talents in the NHRA Full Throttle drag racing series, Robert “Top Gun” Hight and his Jimmy Prock-prepared Automobile Club of Southern California Ford Mustang have come agonizingly close to winning the NHRA Funny Car championship.

In four seasons, Hight NEVER has failed to earn a Top Five berth, twice finishing second and getting so close in 2007 that he would have won had the NHRA not that year changed the format that had been in place for 33 previous seasons.

The 2005 winner of the Auto Club’s Road to the Future Award as the NHRA Rookie-of-the-Year, Hight has won 11 races in a Mustang that has put up the Funny Car division’s best performance numbers for both the standard quarter mile (4.636 seconds) and the 1,000-foot distance (4.005 seconds) at which events have been contested since the June, 2008 crash that claimed the life of two-time series champ Scott Kalitta.

With memories of what-might-have-been still fresh, the former world class marksman this year once again is poised to become the third different John Force Racing driver to win the sport’s premier championship.

“What we’ve learned is that every point is important,” said the 39-year-old phenom who last year lost the championship on the final day of the season, ultimately finishing fourth.  “We had our chances but we didn’t do what we needed to do (to win the championship) and that’s the thing that has given us motivation for the new season.”

Few would bet against the former Force crew member whose success in his first four pro seasons belies a lack of previous driving experience.  Hight hadn’t driven a race car in any discipline when he was named the team’s official “test driver” in 2004. 

Nevertheless, he proved to be a natural and, when he finally got his chance to
drive competitively, he made the most of it.  After starting from the No. 1 qualifying position in just his third event, he celebrated in the winners’ circle one race later (at Houston, Texas).

He won twice in his first year, led the driver points for five races and, at season’s end, was named Rookie-of-the-Year, paving the way for teammates Ashley Force Hood and Mike Neff to claim the same honor in 2007 and 2008.  He hasn’t slowed down since that spectacular rookie year and, entering the 2009 season, had started from No. 1 in almost one third of all his starts (28 of 89) in the blue-and-white Mustang.

After toiling in relative obscurity for 10 seasons at JFR, first as a crew member and later as manager of the team’s California shop facility, Hight was ready when opportunity knocked.  Now, as the lead driver for a team anchored by his father-in-law, he is hoping to claim the team’s 16th series championship in 20 seasons.       

Despite his lack of experience, Hight was identified long before his first race as a “sure bet” by no less an authority than 2005 NHRA Funny Car Champion Gary Scelzi, who told nhra.com: "Robert Hight will be 'Rookie of the Year.  He's a marksman (a former California trap shooting champion) and the concentration he uses in that sport is really helping him in the car.  I've seen him test and he'll be a big player."
          
Indeed, it has been a rocketship ride for the soft-spoken Californian who grew up outside the glare of the motor racing spotlight in Alturas, a small community tucked into the northeastern corner of the state.  He developed an early interest in all things mechanical and, by the time he was 16, already had restored a Plymouth Belvedere, which would serve as transportation to college in Sacramento, where he earned AA degrees in both business and accounting.

Upon graduation, he began to look for opportunities in drag racing.  After starting as a Top Fuel dragster mechanic, he took over as clutch technician on Force’s all-conquering Castrol GTX Funny Car midway through the 1995 season.  In his first race as a JFR crewman (Denver, Colo.), Hight celebrated with Force in the winners’ circle. 

While Hight was winning big on the track, he was winning even bigger off of it.  What began as a friendship with Force’s oldest daughter, Adria, slowly blossomed into a full blown romance that led to the couple’s 1999 wedding and the 2004 birth of daughter Autumn Danielle Hight, the 14-time champion’s only grandchild.  Ironically, Hight’s commitment to his racing career almost ended that relationship before it even began.

“She would see a light on (at the shop) and stop by to talk,” he said of his wife.  “She always asked me to go 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.  Finally, she told John 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.’”

Despite the fact that he always had harbored the dream of driving, Hight never believed the opportunity would present itself.  That perception changed in 2003 when Force opted to put the late Eric Medlen, Hight’s friend and crewmate, in the cockpit of the car vacated by departing champion Tony Pedregon.

Hight cites Medlen’s driving success for making JFR’s “Next Generation” initiative possible and credits the six-time tour winner for helping him through his rookie season.

If there is a victim of Hight’s total commitment to his racing career, it is his “other life” as a world class marksman.  A state trapshooting champion at age 15, he is one of the few shooters in the world to have achieved the Grand Slam of marksmanship – 200 straight targets at the 16-foot standard distance, 100 straight at the maximum handicap distance (27 feet) and 100 doubles (two targets at once) in the same competition. 

He even was good enough to be considered for a berth on the U.S. Olympic team, an opportunity he didn’t pursue because of his racing responsibilities.  As a shooter, Hight worked extensively with experts in hand-eye coordination and concentration, elements that also have proved key in his drag racing success.

“In drag racing, you only have to keep that focus for two minutes – from when you start the car, through the burnout and then the run,” he said.  “In shooting, you have to retain that focus a lot longer, so that probably helped me.

“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.”

His drag racing career notwithstanding, Hight grew up like so many American youngsters dreaming of a career in professional baseball.  A big fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers, as a kid he corresponded with Tommy Lasorda and, last year, got a one-on-one meeting with the legendary Dodger manager, threw out the first pitch at a Dodgers’ game and, for two races, drove a special edition Ford commemorating the Dodgers’ 50th anniversary in Los Angeles.

-www.johnforceracing.com-