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It’s been a few years, but Robert Hight is back on top.
The California native won his third NHRA Funny Car Championship in 2019, but had to wait a few years before he could challenge for the title again.
Covid-19 ruled Hayate out of all but two races in 2020. Then, when he returned to the sport in 2021, he won just two races and finished a disappointing eighth in the standings.
But now, Hight looks set to make a run at a fourth championship. He has six wins this season and a 250-point lead in the Funny Car standings.
Of course, that lead will disappear once the championship countdown — the NHRA’s six-race event — begins after this weekend’s U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. But Hight is proud of his John Force Racing team’s performance so far this season and has high hopes to make it count.
Robert Hight. Photo courtesy NHRA
“It’s what you dream about every year,” Hayt said in an exclusive interview with . Auto Racing Digest. “Sometimes it’s a distant dream with the level of competition in a funny car. I think it’s harder than ever to even win a race. But we got to the other finals by winning six.
After missing most of 2020, Hight said last year was the most humbling season. The group He expected to return to his performance in 2019, but was probably caught off guard after a year off.
Haight said, We all hoped to be back in 2021 and it didn’t happen. “There are no excuses, but I think we tried a lot of things last year that didn’t work out and hurt our performance.
“But you learn in the long run from things that don’t work. When you try something that doesn’t work, you can still improve. We spent the winter focusing on where to go next and what we did wrong last year.
“We came out swinging and won the first two races. I think we all learned that maybe we took things for granted and that was it. [going to be] Easy last year. We quickly learned that it wasn’t.”
The team’s progress over the course of the season has clearly paid off, and now Hight looks forward to the countdown. He may have won all year, but with the upcoming point reset, he has no time to rest.
“You’ve got to be focused and humble and stay out of the way,” Hight said of the count. Unfortunately, you can have an incredible regular season and win every tournament. But if you haven’t done it in the last six, it doesn’t mean anything.
Hite isn’t the only JFR driver, though. On the Top Fuel side of things, Brittany Force has four wins of her own and leads the standings. The duo has a chance to win the Top Fuel and Funny Car championships for the team – which they will do once more in 2017.
“This is probably the best four-car team we’ve ever fielded,” Hight said.
While Hight hopes to capture his fourth Funny Car title at Pomona this November (if he tops the count, if not sooner), he’ll be looking to win his fourth U.S. Nationals this weekend in Indianapolis.
“It’s the biggest tournament of the year,” Hight said. “It’s our Daytona 500 or Indy 500.
“(Top Full racing legend ‘Big Daddy’) Don Garlits once said, ‘You beat Indy. You can retire now.’ That is the mindset of how important it is to win the race. For us, it just wraps up a perfect regular season and gives us some motivation heading into the countdown.
“You win the biggest tournament of the year and you’re at a high level going into that first tournament [of the Countdown] I think it’s important to get out of Indy with some speed in Redding, Pennsylvania, and you always want to win the biggest race of the year.
“A driver’s career is measured by championships and how many times they win Indy. I’m lucky to be able to do both. I want more of each.”
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