Epping, ‘Eastern Swing’ come at great time for AAA Northern New England driver Robert Hight

Published June 2, 2017

EPPING, NH – The way Robert Hight’s AAA Northern New England Chevrolet Camaro SS has been running, the “Eastern Swing” could not be starting at a better time.

Starting with the New England Nationals this weekend at New England Dragway, the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series races on four consecutive weekends. Following Epping, there’s Englishtown, N.J., Bristol, Tenn., and Norwalk, Ohio.

Hight is on a roll, going to final round once and the semifinals three times in the last four races. And he’s coming off a hot spree in Topeka, where he posted three of the five fastest speeds in Funny Car history – including a career-best 338.09 mph.

“We are that close,” Hight said. “We just have to keep working hard. All we can do is keep digging every week. My guys have a lot of work to do to get ready for four races in a row. That’s a grind, but these guys want it just as bad as I do. We are hungry and we are going to do whatever it takes in the next week and a half to make sure that we are leaving nothing on the table for the next four. Maybe when we get to Epping, we can start a streak of our own.”

Hight is still looking for his first victory of 2017, which would be the 38th of his career. But he knows it’s just around the corner if his team keep performing the way it has. That’s why Epping and the four-race swing couldn’t come at a better time.

“It is,” Hight said. “That’s what you need. You need to start that four in a row with some confidence, and nothing is a bigger confidence builder than a win. One that’s coming up that I really want to win is Englishtown. That’s a big race, and I call it one of the majors on the tour. There’s a lot of history there.”

“If you get conditions in Englishtown and Epping like we had in Topeka, you can see these numbers again. What I like is we have a good car when it’s hot and we have a good car when it’s cool. We’ve just gotta put four runs together on Sunday.”

Two qualifying sessions are slated for Friday (5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Eastern) and Saturday (noon and 4:30 p.m.), with final eliminations scheduled for Sunday at 11 a.m.

Fox Sports 1 will televise one hour of live qualifying on Friday at 7:30 p.m. Eastern, with an hour of qualifying coverage on Sunday at 12:30 a.m. Eastern. FS1 will have three hours of eliminations at 4:30 p.m.

Man of many hats: 16-time Funny Car champion John Force an owner, driver – and father

– At the NHRA New England Nationals this weekend at New England Dragway, you’ll see sixteen-time Funny Car champion John Force wearing one PEAK Coolant and Motor Oil hat.

But in all reality, he will wear three hats this weekend – and every race weekend on the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season.

One, he’s the team owner for John Force Racing, supervising four race teams – his own PEAK Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car, Robert Hight’s Auto Club of Southern California Chevrolet Funny Car, Courtney Force’s Advance Auto Parts Chevrolet Funny Car and Brittany Force’s Monster Energy Top Fuel dragster.

Two, he’s a driver of the PEAK Chevy, battling for his 17th NHRA championship.

And finally, he’s dad to Adria Hight, Ashley Force Hood, Brittany Force and Courtney Force.

“You’ve got to wear three hats,” Force said. “You’ve got to be an owner, and you want to see any of your cars win.

“I drive right next to (Courtney), so you want to beat her, and that can be an aggravation on some days – different hat there.

“But then as a dad, you worry about their safety. They’re the ones who chose to get in these cars.”

Somehow, Force has the energy at age 68 to successfully handle all three tasks. And he’s still competitive, having won at Gainesville earlier this season for his 148th career victory.

“My cars right now, Robert Hight is real fast in the Auto Club Chevrolet,” Force said. “My daughter Brittany just set the national speed record in the Monster Top Fuel dragster. Courtney and myself are right in there.”

In addition to Brittany’s record-setting speed of 333.66 mph in Topeka two weeks ago, Courtney Force and Robert Hight own the second- and third-fastest speeds in Funny Car history, 338.68 mph and 338.09 mph, respectively.

John Force didn’t quite match those speeds in Topeka, but after a recent test at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis, he’s confident of improvement for his own team.

And he’s hoping those big speeds can happen at New England Dragway this weekend.

“I probably raced there 35 years ago,” Force said. “I’ve been racing for four decades. I raced at New England in the early days on the old track. Now, there’s a lot of upgrades, a lot of changes. It’s great for the fans. The track surface is really good, and if we get good weather, speed, ET records can be set.”

Two qualifying sessions are slated for Friday (5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Eastern) and Saturday (noon and 4:30 p.m.), with final eliminations scheduled for Sunday at 11 a.m.

Inaugural Epping winner Courtney Force ready to take Advance Auto Parts Chevy back to winner’s circle

– Few drivers on the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series circuit can say they won the inaugural event at one of the current tracks.

Advance Auto Parts Chevrolet Camaro SS driver Courtney Force is one of them, and she believes this weekend’s NHRA New England Nationals at New England Dragway is the perfect site for her to get on a roll and win her first Funny Car race of 2017.

Force won the first race at the track in 2013, besting father John Force in the first of their two career final-round matchups against each other. Courtney Force also set two career-bests in the most recent race – the NHRA Menards Heartland Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka – with an elapsed time of 3.815 seconds in qualifying and 338.68 mph in her first-round race. The career-best ET was, for a short time, a national record.

“I think our Advance Auto Parts team is ready to go for four in a row,” Force said. “We feel good about the car and know we can compete. We’ve won here before and looking forward to going back to a place that is familiar to us. We can always go back and look at data from previous races. A lot has changed, but we can learn from certain things. We’re just hoping to come off Topeka on a high note and go back to a track that’s been good to us.”

Force seeks her first victory of the season despite setting four consecutive No. 1 qualifying efforts, between races at Las Vegas and Atlanta. While it’s nice to be quickest on Friday and Saturday, it’s the quick times on Sunday that matter most.

“It’s nice that we’ve had a fast and quick race car, to set for a time a national record and be one of the few to run over 338 mph – it definitely feels good – but we have to learn from that and be more consistent,” Force said. “We’ve got to start going rounds. Our biggest struggle is not having that ET on Sundays. It’s a corner we’re turning now, but my team is finding time and speed out of this race car, and it’s only a matter of time before we get into that winner’s circle. We’re hoping to do it there in Epping, N.H.”

Not only is the four-race stretch key in obtaining momentum, it is also an opportunity to gain valuable points toward the Countdown to the Championship, the NHRA’s version of the playoffs, which includes the final six races of the season.

“When you start a four-race swing, you want to kick it off on a high note,” said Force, sixth in Funny Car points standings. “We want to do well at the first race so we can keep the momentum going for the (other) three. It’s going rounds and getting this car on a roll. This is where it will be really important to build up points. Four in a row is going to fly by, so it will be a time to get up there and start getting some of those points back.”

The New England Nationals kicks off Friday with two qualifying sessions (5 and 7:30 p.m. Eastern), the second session to be televised live on Fox Sports 1. Qualifying continues Saturday with two more rounds (noon and 4:30 p.m.), with an hour of television coverage scheduled on FS1 at 12:30 a.m. Sunday.

Elimination rounds begin at 11 a.m. Sunday, with three hours of television coverage on FS1 starting at 4:30 p.m.

Brittany Force, Monster Energy team hope to keep momentum rolling at New England Dragway

– Brittany Force heads into this weekend’s NHRA New England Nationals at New England Dragway upbeat and ready to win. And she feels recent achievements have established positive momentum necessary for success in the “Eastern Swing,” a string of four consecutive race weekends that includes stops in Epping; Englishtown, N.J.; Bristol, Tenn.; and Norwalk, Ohio.

Force, driver of the Monster Energy Top Fuel dragster, pulled off her career-best elapsed time (3.674 seconds) and speed (333.66 mph) in the last event – the NHRA Menards Heartland Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka in Kansas. Her crew discovered an issue with the clutch before the race weekend and made the fix, giving Force a car which she now feels capable of winning.

“We’ve definitely turned the corner and we’re right there, right on the edge of getting into winner’s circle,” Force said. “I’m excited for four in a row; I feel like the whole team, and me as a driver, are right there, and we can establish some momentum going race weekend after race weekend after race weekend. We’re ready to win.”

Force is seeking to win her first race of the season and first at the New Hampshire track. Her best appearance came in 2015, where she made it to the semifinals before falling to Larry Dixon. She qualified No. 3, a career-best at the track, last season, but fell in an upset to Todd Paton. The plus side –the inaugural race came during her rookie season, so she’s never missed a race at the track. And since the track is still fairly new to the NHRA schedule, she feels no one really has a distinct advantage.

“Everyone is still really on the same playing field,” Force said. “Everyone has been down the track the same number of times in qualifying, so that gives teams, especially teams like ours, a little advantage.”

Elimination rounds begin at 11 a.m. Sunday, with three hours of television coverage on FS1 starting at 4:30 p.m.

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