Auto Club of Southern California driver Robert Hight joins 338 mph club, races to Topeka semifinals

Published May 22, 2017

John out in Round 1, Courtney and Brittany in round 2

TOPEKA, KS – Robert Hight and his Auto Club of Southern California Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car keep getting faster and faster.

Hight raised his career-best speed at the Menards NHRA Heartland Nationals on Sunday at Heartland Park Topeka. But he fell short of the ultimate goal of winning the race after smoking the tires in the semifinals.

“We are going rounds, we are running so good,” Hight said. “Anything less than a final round, you feel like you failed. We are going rounds, (I’m) driving all right. This was kind of a different set of circumstances with the conditions we had this weekend, it was pretty amazing. We just gotta put four together.”

Hight has now been to the semifinals in three of the last four races, also advancing to the final round in Houston. But he’s looking for his first victory of the season and 38th of his career, even as crew chief Jimmy Prock and the Auto Club team get their Camaro quicker and quicker.

Hight made his career-best elapsed time during qualifying, 3.826 seconds at 337.66 mph, snaring the No. 3 qualifying spot. In the first round against Dale Creasy, Hight joined the 338 mph club, beating Creasy with a pass of 3.833 at a career-best 338.09 mph.

Hight then knocked off Bob Tasca III in the second round with a run of 3.895 at 332.43 mph, using a .055-second reaction time to beat Tasca’s .058 light and run of 3.910 at 325.22 mph.

That put Hight against Capps for the fourth race in a row and second in a row in the semifinals. Hight was again off the line first, a .055 light, but the Auto Club Chevy went into tire smoke. Capps cruised to the final round with a pass of 3.908 seconds at 323.97 mph, while Hight slowed to a 6.168-second run at 118.16 mph.

“Man, I was not expecting that,” Hight said. “Jimmy wasn’t expecting it obviously. What makes you mad is when you see what it takes to win. We’ve got to learn from that. We weren’t going up there trying to run .90. We’ve got to back it down and race better.

“We will. We’ve got a great team, and everybody is doing a great job – no mistakes. It’s going to turn, and when it does, I think its gonna go our way for a while.”

Force and the Advance Auto Parts Fuel team return to action June 2-4 for the NHRA New England Nationals at New England Dragway in Epping, N.H. That’s the first of four races in four weekends for the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series.

Career-best speed propels Advance Auto Parts driver Courtney Force to Topeka second round

– Courtney Force, of course, wants to win more rounds and more races with her Advance Auto Parts Funny Car team.

But she also knows progress continues to be made, progress that will eventually lead to adding to her career win total.

Force raced to the second round of the Menards NHRA Heartland Nationals on Sunday at Heartland Park Topeka, posting her career-best speed – and second all time – in the process.

“Really excited about our Advanced Auto Parts team,” Force said. “Joining in the 338 mph club this weekend was a killer run for us. Not many people have done it, and this was the weekend, this was the track, here at Heartland Park to do it.”

Force accomplished that feat in the first round, as her pass of 3.821 seconds at 338.68 mph knocked off No. 15 qualifier Tim Wilkerson. It was also her best run in the first round this season, as crew chief Dan Hood and co-crew chief Ronnie Thompson build consistency into Force’s fast Chevrolet Camaro SS.

“I’m really excited to see these strides our team is making,” Force said. “More importantly, the fact that we have had a consistent car on race day. We backed it down a little when we went up there for round two, wanted to be safe and make sure we got to run down there.

“But the track changed completely from round one so we backed it down and it was a little bit too much; we got outrun in that second round.”

While eventual race winner Ron Capps made a run of 3.866 seconds at 325.45 mph, Force trailed with a pass of 3.902 seconds at 333.00 mph.

“It’s still a great feeling for our Advance Auto Parts team,” Force said. “I’m really excited for what we currently have right now and I feel like we have the consistency we have been looking for, so I’m really excited to be going into four in a row with this kind of momentum and looking forward to seeing what we can do with the Eastern swing.”

Brittany Force, Monster Energy team snap out of funk in Topeka, advance to Heartland Nationals second round

– Brittany Force set career-bests for time and speed and advanced to the quarterfinals of Sunday’s NHRA Menards Heartland Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka before falling to Steve Torrence.

Force – the No. 4 qualifier of the Monster Energy Top Fuel dragster – bested No. 13 Luigi Novelli in the opening-round matchup with a pass of 3.698 seconds at 333.66 mph, a national Top Fuel speed record. That speed was more than a mile an hour faster than her previous best, set during the event’s third qualifying session Saturday, when she ran 332.43 mph. That third-round qualifying pass was also Force’s career-best elapsed time, 3.674 seconds.

“We’d been struggling the last few races, so we went to Indy and tested, and this is the result,” Force said. “This is the run we knew we could achieve, so I’m happy.”

Her first-round victory set up a matchup against No. 5 Torrence, the winner of the two previous races in Charlotte and Atlanta and is a technical partner with the Alan Johnson Racing stable. While Force recorded a reaction time of .074 seconds, Torrence was slightly better at .060 seconds, which made all the difference. Force chased him down the track and – despite a quicker time – Torrence earned the holeshot victory by 0.0056 seconds, or about three feet. Force ran 3.736 seconds at 332.92 mph to Torrence’s 3.745-second pass at 326.95 mph.

“We worked with Torrence all of last year, and his car has been killing it the last few races,” Force said. “We’ll get him next time.”

While the second-round loss is disappointing, Force takes solace in the fact that she advanced out of the first round and set two of her top five quickest passes of her career and her three fastest speeds – all in succession.

“We definitely made some changes for Topeka, and we have a car that we are confident in,” Force said. “It went down the race track every time, set my career-best time and speed. We have a race car that I know we can win in; we’ve just got to get me straightened out. I’ll find it, I’ll be back. I have a great team behind me, and we’ll be ready for the next one.”

Force and the Monster Energy Top Fuel team return to action June 2-4 for the NHRA New England Nationals at New England Dragway in Epping, N.H.

PEAK driver John Force loses close first-round matchup in NHRA Heartland Nationals

– John Force lost a close first-round matchup in Sunday’s NHRA Menards Heartland Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka, the eighth round of the 2017 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series schedule.

Force – driving the PEAK Coolant and Motor Oil Chevrolet Camaro SS – was the No. 6 qualifier and matched up against No. 11 Bob Tasca III. With lane choice, Force took the left lane and ripped off a .054-second reaction time. However, Tasca – who admitted he guessed on the Christmas Tree – pulled off a reaction time of .028 seconds to get the early advantage.

That made all the difference. With both cars making near-flawless passes, Tasca never trailed, and at the finish took a holeshot victory by about 0.0037 seconds, or less than two feet. Force set the better pass on time – 3.907 seconds at 332.34 mph, while Tasca’s pass was 3.930 seconds at 317.49 mph.

“Didn’t get the job done today,” said Force, who lost for only the sixth time in the first round in 34 races. “I got beat up out there.”

Despite the first-round loss, Force set track career bests for time (3.850 seconds) and speed (332.59 mph) – both in the final round of qualifying. The team will test later this week at Lucas Oil Raceway in Brownsburg, Ind.

“We’ll go back to test and we got to get better,” Force said. “All my cars ran good today; I just didn’t get the win.”

Force and the PEAK Coolant and Motor Oil Chevrolet Camaro team return to action June 2-4 for the NHRA New England Nationals at New England Dragway in Epping, N.H.

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Posted in AAA Auto Club, Advance Auto, John Force Racing, Monster Energy