ENNIS, Texas – NHRA Funny Car driver Robert Hight and Top Fuel pilot Brittany Force both notched victories for John Force Racing at the AAA Texas FallNationals on Sunday at the Texas Motorplex.
In the Nitro Funny Car final round Hight capped off a stellar performance in his AAA Texas Chevrolet Camaro with a 3.877-second pass at 332.34 mph to defeat reigning world champion and category points leader Ron Capps’ 3.927 pass at 329.18 in his Napa Auto Parts Dodge R/T.
It was Hight’s second Countdown to the Championship victory in four races and pulled within 24 points of class leader Ron Capps with two races remaining on the season schedule.
“This was huge,” Hight said. “A round win is worth 20 points but truthfully that final round win for us was 40 points. “We were 44 back going into the final round and had we lost that’s 64. Winning brought it back to 24 which is a little over a round with two races left. That was a 40-point swing for us. That was big. We needed that one. We would have been pretty bummed leaving here over three rounds back.”
Hight marched his way to the final round by defeating Jim Campbell, Alexis DeJoria and Tim Wilkerson. Capps made it to the finals by taking down Del Worsham, 16-time world champion John Force and teammate Jack Beckman.
“It always hurts a little bit when you get into the final and then you fall a little bit short,” Capps said. “But reflecting right now, we didn’t beat ourselves. We gave them a great race and that’s where you’ve just got to go over and shake their hand and tell them, ‘great race’ because that was a pretty awesome side-by-side run.”
The victory was Hight’s fourth win of the season, third at the Texas Motorplex and 41st of his career.
“Anything can happen; there’s a lot of racing left,” Hight said. “We’re going to Vegas with different conditions. We make a lot of horsepower and I like our chances there. I know we can do this.”
In the Top Fuel finals B. Force powered her Monster Energy dragster to a Texas Motorplex elapsed-time record of 3.681 at 326.87 to defeat Shawn Langdon and his Global Electronic Technology dragster’s 3.693 pass at 326.56 mph.
The victory, which was her third of the season and sixth of her career, moved her into second in the points standings and Force now trails Steve Torrence by only 57 points.
“It’s been quite a day. A lot needed to happen and it seemed to work in our favor,” Force says. “Really it was about us going rounds. We had Doug Kalitta and Steve Torrence, the two people in front of us in the standings. Everyone has been struggling trying to take them down. They’ve been killing it. When we pulled up there I felt confident in us that we were going to turn those win lights on. That’s what we needed to do, we were able to do it and then we were able to take down Langdon and won the thing. This is a huge win. It’s a Countdown race. And we’re still climbing that ladder.”
Force marched her way to the finals by defeating Terry McMillen, Doug Kalitta and Torrence in previous rounds. Langdon reached the finals by taking down Clay Millican, Terry Haddock and reigning world champion Antron Brown.
“The guys did a fantastic job in giving me a great race car,” said Langdon, who was racing in his first final round since his win at St. Louis in 2016. “I had all the confidence. I felt good on the tree and we stepped it up in the finals. Unfortunately, we came up one-thousandth short. Brittany did a great job. If you had told me before the final that I would go .048 and 3.69, I would have liked my chances. They were just one thousandth better.
“It stings a little bit, but I’m just proud of this whole Global Electronic Technology Toyota team for fighting hard. They fought hard all day and gave me a great car. If we have a car like that for the last two races, I plan on winning at least one of them. It would be awesome to get another win in Top Fuel (before moving over to Funny Car next year). My plan is to win the next two – that’s my goal. It will be a big change next year and I’m excited about it, but my plan is to just focus on the rest of this year first.”
Both Hight and Force will continue their battle in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series Countdown to the Championship at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Oct. 26-29, with the 17th annual NHRA Toyota Nationals.
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