Hight’s Lucky Charm -Team Force 1-0

Posted by pikesan on Mar 8, 2011 in Racing | 0 comments

2011 Winternationals Winner Robert Hight

HIGHT MIXES LUCKY CHARM WITH FORD ONE APPROACH TO START SEASON 1-0

YORBA LINDA, CA (March 1, 2011) —Minutes after Robert Hight and his Jimmy Prock tuned Auto Club Ford Mustang raced to a season opening win at the 51st annual Kragen O’Reilly NHRA Winternationals Hight was giving some of the credit to a lucky charm he picked up from a fellow Ford teammate last season. In honor of the Wood Brothers dominating performance at the Daytona 500 Hight raced all day with a commemorative coin Eddie and Len Wood gave him at Charlotte’s zMax Dragway in 2010.

“I had a little good luck charm (Sunday) besides my daughter Autumn. The Wood Brothers gave me this (commemorative coin) last year,” said Hight a three-time Winternationals winner.  “It was a celebration of their 60 years of racing. They went out and won Daytona in the No. 21 car this year and they didn’t get lucky. They dominated kind of like John Force Racing did (on Sunday). This year is NHRA’s 60^th anniversary.  It was cool as the day went on to look at that coin and to think about how cool it was to have it riding with me. To have Ford Racing start out with wins at the Daytona 500 and the NHRA Winternationals is big. This baby is going with me to Gainesville.”

For Hight the win was a reversal of misfortune when you look at how he finished the 2010 season. His last round win came in August at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, Minnesota and the 2009 Funny Car champion went 0-5 in the Countdown after starting in the No. 2 position last season. Through all the adversity Hight and his Auto Club Ford Mustang team never gave up.

“You don’t ever give up. That is how we won the Full Throttle championship in 2009.  Don’t give up. We had a terrible first half. We just came to life in the Countdown (in 2009). You have to believe in the people around you,” said the 19-time NHRA national event winner.  “You can’t fight and you just have to work through those tough times. It would have been worse last year if John (Force) would not have been winning and won the championship. As one big team, John Force Racing still pulled through it. That made it a little bit easier. What is funny is after 2009 John told me he was coming after me and this past winter I joked with John about coming after him.”

Hight along with 15-time Full Throttle Funny Car champion John Force and up and coming Funny Car driver Courtney Force will attend the Kobalt Tools 400 NASCAR race this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It will be a celebration of both Ford victories as well as the first event an early version of the John Force Racing Road Show will be unveiled.

“We are working on putting together the big PT Barnum John Force Racing Road Show but Chris Blair from Las Vegas asked us to bring what we have so far to his race,” said John Force. “I love working with (track owner) Bruton Smith and his people so we are heading over there for both races this weekend. We’ll have the full multi-trailer Road Show ready in a few weeks but we wanted to get out and start spreading the gospel about the NHRA as soon as possible. Come by and see what we have but just understand this is the tip of the iceberg. We are working with the NHRA, Ford Racing, Castrol, Mac Tools, Auto Club, BrandSource and all our sponsors to put together something fans have never seen before.”

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FOLLOW JOHN FORCE RACING AT www.twitter.com/jfr_racing.com

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NEXT NHRA EVENT:
42nd annual NHRA Gatornationals, March 10-13, Gainesville, Fla.

12th annual SummitRacing.com Nationals, April 1-3, Las Vegas, Nev.

2nd annual NHRA 4-Wide Nationals, April 15-17, Charlotte, N.C.

24th annual O’Reilly Spring Nationals, April 29-May 1, Houston, Texas

31st annual Summit Southern Nationals, May 13-15, Atlanta, Ga.

23rd annual O’Reilly Summer Nationals, May 20-22, Topeka, Kan.