DATE OF BIRTH:
August 20, 1969
HOMETOWN:
Anaheim Hills, Calif.
CAREER WINS: 27
FC: 27
CAREER FINAL ROUNDS: 42
FC: 42
CAREER BEST E.T.:
4.005
CAREER BEST SPEED:
321.81
Seeking Perfection at 320 Miles Per Hour
As the President of John Force Racing, Inc., Robert Hight does not get a seven figure salary, the use of a private jet or stock options. What he does get is the opportunity to drive what many consider the most outrageous race car on the planet, the 320 mile-an-hour Auto Club of Southern California Ford Mustang Funny Car.
In Hight’s world, that is compensation enough.
The intense 43-year-old has taken his car to more final rounds (42), won more races (27) and started from the No. 1 qualifying position more often the last eight years than any other professional Funny Car driver. Beyond that, he’s won the championship (2009) and he has set NHRA national performance records.
Yet, despite it all, as a racer he remains unfulfilled.
This year, as he has in every previous campaign, Hight is looking for perfection – or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. While he knows that no one can win every one of the 24 events in the NHRA Mello Yello Series, the former clutch specialist believes it is possible to dominate for an entire season.
The fact that he and crew chief Jimmy Prock have been unable to do so, however, is a source of continued frustration.
Hight has been good to start the season and he’s been good at the finish. Unfortunately, to this point in a spectacular career, he hasn’t been good, start to finish. That’s the goal.
With the inaugural Mello Yello title looming this year as an additional incentive, the intensely competitive Hight hopes to finally put together the type of signature season that has marked the career of his boss, teammate and father-in-law, John Force.
Imperfections notwithstanding, Hight is widely considered the gold standard by which other pro drivers are measured. No one, not Force, not Don Garlits, not Don Prudhomme, not Kenny Bernstein, not even Tony Schumacher began their careers by winning multiple races, starting at least once from No. 1 and leading the driver standings eight straight seasons.
That’s the foundation on which Hight begins his ninth season as a professional driver. His resume is the more impressive because he never had driven competitively in any kind of race car before Force named him the team’s test driver in 2004.
A year later, he was named driver of the Auto Club Ford, a car in which he won in just his fourth pro race and in which he earned the Auto Club’s Road to the Future Award as the NHRA Rookie of the Year. He’s never looked back.
Although his worst-to-first 2009 title run was a career-maker, Hight should have won the championship two years earlier. That was the year he withdrew from an event in Houston, Texas, following a testing accident that claimed the life of friend and teammate Eric Medlen. He wound up losing the title by 19 points.
“I can’t give John enough credit,” Hight said of his meteoric rise as a pro driver. “He took a chance on a guy from northern California that had never driven anything but a Ford F-150 truck. He sold me to all the sponsors. He put me with the very best people and it’s been a dream come true.”
Force may have provided the resources, but Hight insured the results. In seven seasons, he has started from the front 43 times, more often than anyone except Force (140), Bernstein (50) and Cruz Pedregon (45).
After toiling in relative obscurity for 10 seasons at JFR, first as a crew member on Force’s Castrol GTX Funny Cars and later as manager of the team’s California shop facility, Hight was ready when opportunity knocked. Now, he is hoping to secure the team’s 18th series title in the last 24 NHRA seasons.
It has been a rocket ride for the usually soft-spoken Hight who developed an interest in all things mechanical working with his father in his hometown of Alturas, Calif.
By the time he was 16, he already had restored a Plymouth Belvedere, a car that would serve as transportation to college in Sacramento where he earned AA degrees in business and accounting while working part-time at Tognotti’s Speed Shop.
Upon graduation, and to the consternation of his parents, Hight began looking for career opportunities in drag racing. After starting as a Top Fuel dragster mechanic for Roger Primm Racing and driver Del Worsham, he fumbled his first opportunity with Team Force because of opposition from his family and then girlfriend.
Fortunately, he got a second chance when he took over as the clutch technician on Force’s Castrol GTX hybrid midway through the 1995 season. He celebrated in the winners’ circle his first week on the job, a habit that’s been hard for him to break.
While he was winning on the track, Hight also was having success elsewhere. What began as a friendship with Force’s oldest daughter, Adria, slowly blossomed into a romance that led to the couple’s 1999 wedding. In 2004, Adria gave birth to a daughter, Autumn Danielle, who today is her dad’s biggest fan.
Ironically, Hight’s commitment to his racing career almost ended that relationship before it even began.
“She would see a light on (at the shop) and stop to talk,” he said of his wife, the Chief Financial Officer at JFR. “She asked me to do things with her, but I wouldn’t (because) I was afraid I’d get in trouble. John made a point of reminding the crew that dating his daughters was off limits but, finally, she talked to him and he told me, ‘if you want to hang out with Adria, don’t worry about it. You’re not going to get in trouble.’”
It was all the re-assurance he needed.
Although he always nurtured the dream of driving a race car, Hight never believed the opportunity would present itself. It’s a perception that changed when Force opted to give Medlen a chance to drive the Castrol SYNTEC Ford that had been vacated by Tony Pedregon after he won a championship with JFR in 2003.
Ultimately, Medlen’s driving success provided validity for Force’s “Next Generation” initiative and Hight credits his friend, a six-time tour winner, with helping to insure his success.
If there was a victim of Hight’s total commitment to his racing career, it was his “other life” as a world class marksman.
One of a small number of shooters to have achieved the Grand Slam of marksmanship – 200 consecutive targets at the standard 16-yard distance, 100 at the maximum handicap distance (27 yards) and 100 doubles (two targets at once), Hight was good enough to be considered for a berth on the U.S. Olympic team.
It’s an opportunity he chose not to pursue because of his racing career although he has applied the sport’s hand-eye coordination and concentration skills to his driving.
As a youngster, he also dreamed of a career in baseball and although he never played professionally, his racing success led to his introduction to one of his baseball idols, former Los Angeles Dodgers’ manager Tommy Lasorda.
“It’s been great,” Hight said of his career, “but Jimmy and I still have a lot to accomplish. I’ve got a great team. We’re not through winning. I can promise you that.”
-www.johnforceracing.com-
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Jimmy Prock Crew Chief
Jimmy Prock once was considered the best crew chief never to have won an NHRA championship. Now the introspective 45-year-old with the go-for-the-jugular mentality may be the sport’s best crew chief, period.
At the very least, he is one of the most innovative high performance mavens of his generation.
Having won the Full Throttle Funny Car championship in 2009, Prock no longer need address questions about his inability to “win it all.”
Not only did he direct Robert Hight and the Automobile Club of Southern California Ford Mustang to victory in half the races in the NHRA’s 2009 Countdown to 1 playoffs, he secured a 1-2 finish for John Force Racing, Inc., that earned the sport’s dominant Funny Car team its 16th title in 20 seasons.
“His cars have always run low ET and big speed,” Hight said. “Performance has never been a problem, but now he’s learned to race smart and that’s gotta be scary for everyone else out there.”
Now, Prock can focus on fine-tuning the potent blue-and-white Auto Club Ford Mustang that he and Hight have transformed into the gold standard for Funny Car performance.
Although it uses a John Force Racing-developed Ford BOSS 500 engine for power, the 8,000 horsepower Ford has racked up numbers more worthy of rocket science. Thus its nickname, “The Prock Rocket.”
In fact, it has carried Hight to the quickest times in Funny Car history – 4.636 seconds at the quarter mile distance and 4.005 seconds at 1,000 feet on the way to a mind-boggling 18 victories and 38 No. 1 starts.
Prock’s championship breakthrough came, surprisingly enough, in a season in which he struggled more than he has in any other in his career.
Trying to work through mechanical issues resulting from yet another detour from conventional wisdom, he almost didn’t get his car into the playoffs. Once he did, it was lights out. Hight won three of six Countdown races to become the first driver in any category to win from the No. 10 starting position.
Before claiming the 2009 Full Throttle title, Prock twice had lost championships by less than one racing round. On both occasions, the difference-maker was a race not run. He finished second with Top Fuel driver Cory McClenathan in 1992, losing the title by nine points when the team opted NOT to attend a race in Montreal, Canada.
In 2007, Prock and Hight were second by 19 points in a season in which they withdrew from one race in the wake of teammate Eric Medlen’s fatal testing accident.
Even before he won the title, Prock already was one of the most respected tuners in the sport; his cars among the most feared.
Despite his reputation for “all-or-nothing” performance, the soft-spoken Prock has shown remarkable consistency since he accepted his first crew chief job in 1991. In 20 professional seasons, he never has failed to put a driver in the Top 10. Furthermore, he has won multiple tour events for 15 straight years including three or more in each his last five campaigns with Hight and the Auto Club.
In fact, since his arrival at JFR in 2001, Prock has fostered a reputation for winning big stakes races based largely on his success in the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis., Ind., drag racing’s equivalent of NASCAR’s Daytona 500. He first won that race in 2004 with driver Gary Densham and has put Hight in the finals four of the last five years with wins in 2006 and 2008.
The current partnership works so well because, as a former crewman, Hight can communicate with Prock on a purely mechanical level better than any of his previous drivers. The downside was supposed to have been that Hight never before had driven competitively, a shortcoming that obviously was greatly overstated.
Not that Prock’s success should surprise anyone. He started going to the races with his dad, Tom, when he was only 11, but it wasn’t until the family moved to California that he decided to make his career in the sport. Working with veteran Ronnie Swearingen, he helped put independent Funny Car driver John Martin in two finals before a 1989 bout with diabetes almost ended his career – and his life.
“I didn’t know what I had and we just kept going,” Prock recalled. “I just kept getting sicker and finally I went to the doctor. We were in Phoenix. I really couldn’t even function. When I came home, the doctor looked at me and just put me right in the hospital. They put IVs right in me. They said I was about ready to go into a coma.”
Today, he manages the situation through diet and insulin shots. Once his health stabilized, Prock went to work with Dick LaHaie, from whom he learned the dragster business, and in 1991 he hooked up with Cory Mac. When sponsorship became a problem for McClenathan, Prock moved to Joe Amato’s where he won 18 races in five-and-a-half years.
Now that he’s back working his magic on a high-powered Funny Car, the only people who see the humor are Hight and car owner John Force.
Danny DeGennaro Assistant Crew Chief
Birthdate: 10/25/1975
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Current Residence: Indianapolis, IN
Year Hired at John Force Racing: 2012
Which Team (s): Robert Hight (Auto Club of Southern California)
How did you get involved in drag racing: He went to a motorsports school in PA and the director was friends with Joe Amato. He was introduced to Joe and has been involved with the sport ever since.
Background (education/work/racing experience): He worked at Joe Amato Racing, Doug Herbert Racing, Carrier Boyz Racing, Tuttle Motorsports, Kenny Bernstein Racing, and Cruz Pedregon Racing before coming to join the John Force Racing family.
Team Responsibilities: Assistant Crew Chief
Favorite part about being involved with drag racing/ working at JFR: His favorite part about being involved with drag racing is the challenge. These cars are a puzzle and you are constantly trying to figure out where the pieces belong. His favorite part about working at JFR is the resources….both parts and personnel. He is able to work with some of the most experienced people in the business.
Career Highlights: having 6 #1 qualifiers in 2011. Especially Indy and Denver
Favorite Track/ Race: Englishtown and Maple Grove…his home town tracks
Hobbies/Interests: He is very fortunate that he gets to call my hobby a career. He is also fascinated by the technology and craftsmanship of mechanical timepieces.
Ryan Heileson Team Leader
Nickname (If any): Bryan Ryan
Birthdate: 10/12/1981
Hometown: Idaho Falls, ID
Current Residence: Indianapolis, IN
Year hired at John Force Racing: 2005
Which Team (s): Robert Hight (Auto Club of Southern California)
How did you get involved in drag racing: A couple of friends from home worked at JFR
Team Responsibilities: Team Leader
Favorite part about being involved with drag racing/working at JFR: being in a new city every week, Jonny’s cooking
Career Highlights: winning Indy in 2008, winning the NHRA Full Throttle Funny Car Championship in 2009
Birthdate: 05/24/1982
Hometown: El Dorado Springs, MO
Current Residence: Brownsburg, IN
Year hired at John Force Racing: 2008
Which Team (s): Robert Hight (Auto Club of Southern California)
How did you get involved in drag racing: When he was a kid, he traveled with his stepfather, Phil McGee's Top Fuel Dragster team.
Background (education/work/racing experience): He began working at McGee Racing Cams building Junior Dragsters and Junior Dragster engines. He also raced Junior Dragsters for 7 years and super comp for 3 years.
Team Responsibilities: cylinder heads
Favorite part about being involved with drag racing/working at JFR: working for the best team in drag racing and being around all of the good friends he’s made here
Career Highlights: winning Indy with Robert in 2008; winning the NHRA Full Throttle Funny Car Championship in 2009
Favorite Track/Race: Pomona and Brainerd
Hobbies/Interests: bowling, cars, racing, playing pool
Tim Dillon
Birthdate: 02/02/1982
Hometown: Nicktown, PA
Current Residence: Brownsburg, IN
Year hired at John Force Racing: 2007
Which Team (s): Robert Hight (Auto Club of Southern California)
How did you get involved in drag racing: His father was a drag racer
Background (education/work/racing experience): Attended University of Northwestern Ohio for High Performance Automotive and has worked for Jim Head Racing, Hartman Racing, Cruz Pedregon Racing, and Cory Mac
Team Responsibilities: Bottom end and short blocks
Favorite part about being involved with drag racing/working at JFR: the opportunity to work with the state of the art cars and equipment and traveling the country
Career Highlights: winning Indy with Robert, winning the NHRA Full Throttle Funny Car Championship in 2009
Favorite Track/Race: Reading and Bristol
Hobbies/Interests: bowling, skiing, riding motorcycles, dirt bikes, spending time with his family
Sam Fabiano
Birthdate: 03/15/1982
Hometown: Lansing, MI
Current Residence: Brownsburg, IN
Year hired at John Force Racing: 2005
Which Team (s): Robert Hight (Auto Club of Southern California)
How did you get involved in drag racing: Jimmy Prock and he grew up around racing
Background (education/work/racing experience): He graduated from Michigan State University
Team Responsibilities: left side, floater
Favorite part about being involved with drag racing/working at JFR: working with and spending time with friends and family at JFR and having the opportunity to learn from the best
Career Highlights: winning the US Nationals twice; having the 2 quickest ¼ mile E.T.s in funny car history; winning the 2009 NHRA Full Throttle Funny Car Championship
Favorite Track/Race: Indy, Las Vegas, Charlotte
Hobbies/Interests: golf, sleeping, watching movies, basketball, R/C Cars, playing with his dog, Rocco
Alex Liggett
Nickname (If any): Al
Birthdate: 10/19/1980
Hometown: Lincoln, KS
Current Residence: Brownsburg, IN
Year hired at John Force Racing: 2005
Which Team (s): Robert Hight (Auto Club of Southern California)
How did you get involved in drag racing: He started going with his family to the races in Topeka and fell in love with the sport and decided that was what he wanted to do for a career.
Background (education/work/racing experience): He attended WyoTech and Jerry Caminito's Blue Thunder Nitro School and then went to work for Skuza Motorsports in 2003
Team Responsibilities: transporter driver, racks and manifolds, clutch assistant
Favorite part about being involved with drag racing/working at JFR: being able to be a part of a very successful organization and getting the opportunity to work with so many good, talented people
Career Highlights: winning Indy twice in 4 seasons; having the 2 quickest Funny Car quarter mile runs in history; winning the Fuel Funny Car Championship in 2009
Favorite Track/Race: Las Vegas
Hobbies/Interests: bowling, classic cars, hanging out with friends and family, dancing, movies
Scott Hunter
Birthdate: 04/27/1986
Hometown: Walled Lake, MI
Current Residence: Brownsburg, IN
Year hired at John Force Racing: 2012
Which Team (s): Robert Hight (Auto Club of Southern California)
How did you get involved in drag racing: Jimmy Prock
Background (education/work/racing experience): He attended NASCAR Technical Institute. He has worked on sportsman late model Ford Focus Midgets and 410 wingless sprint cars.
Team Responsibilities: blowers
Favorite part about being involved with drag racing/working at JFR:
Favorite Track/Race: Charlotte
Hobbies/Interests: racing and snowmobiling
Zak Seedroff
Nickname (If any) Seeds
Birthdate: 02/28/1978
Hometown: Littleton, CO
Current Residence: Centennial, CO
Year hired at John Force Racing: 2001
Which Team (s): Robert Hight (Auto Club of Southern California)
How did you get involved in drag racing: He was first introduced to the Peek Brothers in 1998 by his mother and started working for them shortly after.
Background (education/work/racing experience): After graduating from high school, he began to enjoy working on cars at Sears Auto Center. He took some time off of working on cars to frame houses for a couple of years. While he was away from the car industry, he realized he wanted to get back into working on cars, but this time around he wanted to work on race cars. He started working at Peek Brothers Racing in 1998. He also worked at Ralph White Racing, Don Schumacher Racing, and Rusport Racing (Indy car team). During his time here at JFR he has worked on almost all of the Team Force cars: John Force, Tony Pedregon, Mike Neff, Robert Hight, Ashley Force, Courtney Force, Brittany Force and Eric Medlen.
Team Responsibilities: Racks, Manifolds and Clutch Assistant
Favorite part about being involved with drag racing/working at JFR: getting to meet new people, traveling, and working with some of the best people
Career Highlights: 2 world championships (2003 and 2006), doing bottom end of Eric Medlen’s car for 1st ever win (Brainerd, MN) in 2003,
Favorite Track/Race: Indianapolis and Brainerd
Hobbies/Interests: motocross, boating, jet skiing, hanging out with friends
Nathan Hildahl
Nickname (If any): Nate
Birthdate: 08/01/1990
Hometown: Northfield, MN
Current Residence: Brownsburg, IN
Year hired at John Force Racing: 2013
Which Team (s): Robert Hight (Auto Club of Southern California)
How did you get involved in drag racing: He started racing Junior Dragster at age 8
Background (education/work/racing experience): Attended Wyotech and has been bracket racing for the last 7 years.
Team Responsibilities: Body and Tires
Favorite part about being involved with drag racing/working at JFR: traveling and get to race almost every weekend
Career Highlights:
Favorite Track/Race: Brainerd
Hobbies/Interests: skiing, concerts, bracket racing
