(Robert Hight defeated John Force in the all JFR Funny Car final at Bandimere Raceway)

John Force Racing dominated Funny Car racing during the Mopar Mile High NHRA Nationals.   JFR had two Funny Cars in the final round as Funny Car No. 2 qualifier Robert Hight outran a tire smoking No. 1 qualifier John Force in the Funny Car final, 4.166 seconds to 5.953 seconds.

Hight picked up his fifth win of the season, tying a career high, and his third win at the Mopar Mile High Nationals. He also evened his career record with Force, 16-16 and he now has a 3-2 lead in final round meetings. Force and Hight have lined up against each other four times at Denver before the final and Force was undefeated until today.

Hight started the season with four wins including three in a row earlier in the year. Today’s win was the eighth for JFR in fourteen races this season, Since his win at the Southern Nationals Hight had only one semi-final round appearance.

“We were doing well and we just had some bad luck here and there. You need to have some luck and even when we were winning earlier we were getting some luck. It is good to be back. In 2012 we won four races in a row and then it took another year to get a win. Stuff like that was crossing my mind. If you look around it is not that easy to win out here. There are a lot of good Funny Cars in this class,” said Hight, a 34-time winner.

(For Robert Hight – his win was the 3X in his career he has won at Denver)

“I was racing the 16-time champ in the final. He won last week so he is on a roll. We just had to go up there and do what we knew we could do. We came out with a brand new race car this weekend. We want to make sure it is all ready for the Countdown. If my guys wouldn’t have told me it was a new car I would not have known. Usually new cars drive me crazy because there is different stuff in them. These guys are so good they put this car together perfectly and I would not have known it was different.”

This was the 43rd all-JFR final round and the second time Robert Hight and John Force have opposed one another at Denver where Robert also beat John to win in 2010. This was the 11th Denver wins for JFR. Hight has won in 2005, 2010 and 2014. Just qualifying locked up Hight’s Countdown play-off berth but he was not focused on the championship yet.

“We just go one round at a time. That is how Mike Neff races. Usually that pay off with a lot of round wins. Nothing would mean more to me than to go to Sonoma and win because that is like my home track. This is a big win and we are going to celebrate this one tonight,” said Hight.

“That is exciting. We have some unfinished business. We want to win this Western Swing. We are working really well together. Mike and Jimmy are talking and we are working well as a team. That 4.17 was a step in the right direction since we learned some things yesterday when it was hot. We’ll be ready for the next round,” said Hight after a first round in that clinched his Countdown spot.

Hight defeated veteran Todd Simpson in the first round and then faced teammate Courtney Force in the second round. In the semi-finals he squared off against fellow Ford driver Tim Wilkerson.

Event Essentials:  Mopar Mile-High Nationals (Morrison CO)

(Matt Hagan’s “50th Anniversary Hemi” Dodge Charger was one of the most talked about cars at Denver)

(Cruz Pedregon debuted this great looking special edition Snap-On Toyota Body at Denver)

Posted by Elon Werner

Photos by:  Bruce Biegler