{"id":22284,"date":"2018-10-07T23:01:04","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T04:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=22284"},"modified":"2018-10-09T12:29:50","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T17:29:50","slug":"robert-hight-wins-consecutive-nhra-funny-car-races-during-the-countdown-to-the-champions-at-the-texas-motorplex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/07\/robert-hight-wins-consecutive-nhra-funny-car-races-during-the-countdown-to-the-champions-at-the-texas-motorplex\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Hight wins consecutive NHRA Funny Car races during the Countdown to the Champions at the Texas Motorplex"},"content":{"rendered":"

ENNIS, Texas \u2013 Defending NHRA Funny Car world champion Robert Hight<\/strong> had several good reasons to celebrate after winning the AAA Texas NHRA FallNationals<\/strong> on Sunday at the Texas Motorplex<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Robert Hight. NHRA photo<\/p><\/div>\n

For one, Hight did not get to celebrate his last win two weeks ago in St. Louis with his team.  Shortly after crossing the finish line at Gateway Motorsports Park, his car exploded and crashed into the guardwall.  That sent Hight to the hospital with a broken collarbone, which later required surgery, just nine days before qualifying began on Friday.<\/p>\n

Secondly, the 48-year old driver was determined that once he did return to the dragstrip, he would do whatever it took to not only keep his points lead but to return to Victory Lane so he could celebrate his latest win again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is really cool is we have won two AAA races in a row,\u201d Hight said.  \u201cYou are winning in front of your sponsors, but I just remember not getting to celebrate a win in St. Louis which was a bummer. I was in the hospital and my team was already back at the trailer thinking about putting everything back together,”<\/p>\n

On Sunday at the Texas Motorplex, the defending event and world champion, drove his Auto Club of Southern California Chevrolet Camaro SS to his second consecutive victory with a winning pass clocked at 3.955 at 325.69 mph.  He defeated J.R. Todd in his DHL Toyota Camry, who crossed the line in 3.984 at 319.52 mph.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Robert Hight. NHRA photo<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThis AAA team was just flawless,\u201d Hight said. \u201cWe just got better all weekend as we went. I promise you that we will celebrate tonight because we\u2019re going to make up for the last one. That was one of the biggest rounds I\u2019ve ever raced right there. J.R. Todd is No. 2 in points, he was 30 behind me going into the final and had I lost I\u2019d be 10 ahead; which isn\u2019t much. Luckily we get to do it again next week.\u201d<\/p>\n

The victory was his 45th career victory, fourth of the season and fourth at the AAA Texas NHRA FallNationals.<\/p>\n

Hight marched his way to the finals by defeating Jim Campbell, Tim Wilkerson and Bob Tasca III.  Todd defeated John Hale, Jack Beckman and No. 1 qualifier Tommy Johnson Jr. on his way to his second final round of the Countdown to the Championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was one of the biggest rounds I have ever raced right there,\u201d Hight said.  \u201cJ.R. Todd is number two in the points and he was 30 behind me going into the final round. Had I lost I would only be ten points ahead which isn\u2019t much. Now, since we won, we have a 50-point lead which is a 40 point swing. I can\u2019t wait to get to the track next week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hight leads Todd by 50 points going into the next race this weekend at ZMax Dragway in Charlotte, N.C.  Tim Wilkerson is third and trails Hight by 133 points. Rounding out the top five in the Funny Car point standings are Tommy Johnson and Courtney Force.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made a prediction early on going into the Countdown that I needed to win three races and not have any first round losses,\u201d Hight said.  \u201cSo far so good. We are halfway through the Countdown and we have two wins and a semifinal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hight added, \u201cFifty points is not a big lead over JR Todd. That car is strong and he is a good driver in a car that has been to two finals in the Countdown. We have to keep pushing all the way to Pomona where it is points and a half. Anything can happen. We have to keep pushing.\u201d<\/p>\n

ENNIS, Texas \u2013 Defending NHRA Funny Car world champion Robert Hight had several good reasons to celebrate after winning the AAA Texas NHRA FallNationals on Sunday at the Texas Motorplex. For one, Hight did not get to celebrate his last win two weeks ago in St. Louis with his team.  Shortly after crossing the finish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[333,6,121,328],"class_list":["post-22284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhra","tag-aaa-texas-nhra-fallnationals","tag-nhra","tag-robert-hight","tag-texas-motorplex"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/398-RobertHight-Sunday-Dallas.jpg?fit=2200%2C1467&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5Nq","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22284"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22286,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22284\/revisions\/22286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}