Hight not polishing the trophy just yet

Above: Robert Hight hopes to continue the celebration this weekend. (Staff photo by Will Lester)

As far as most are concerned, the race for the Funny Car championship is about over.
Auto Club driver Robert Hight is among them.
The veteran, on the brink of his first title is not taking anything for granted.
"Insurmountable lead? I wouldn't say that," said Hight, who leads the championship chase by 105 points over second-place Ashley Force Hood and 113 over third-place Tony Pedregon coming into this weekend's season-ending Auto Club Finas at Fairplex. "We failed to qualify twice this year with my car. So that's first and foremost. We've got to get out there and qualify well, and when you see the conditions that we might have, it is possible to set a record. That's what it's going to take for somebody to get us if we qualify well."
But his team owner and father-in-law John Force, himself the winner of 14 nitro coupe titles, is not taking anything for granted as well, even though if Hight qualified for the race, it would eliminate Pedregon and force Force Hood to win the event while setting a national elapsed time record.
"We're going to do our best," Hight said. "Force, he has a pretty good way of motivating us. He pulled everybody to the shop this morning, and he had some video clips ready for us all to see, and it showed back in '90 when he won his first championship and how excited they were. And he wanted (Hight crew chief Jimmy Prock) and I and our team to see that. And we actually got ‑‑ he even had the '92 world finals (that Cory McClenathan, with Jimmy Prock as his crew chief) lost by nine points I think it was. And Jimmy Prock was his crew chief. They looked like little kids. '92, they were so young.
"He just was wanting to show Jimmy, 'Hey, look how long it's been and how long you've been trying to do this,' and just give him a little motivation. 'You deserve this, you've earned it, and you've worked hard. So you know, get out there and win this thing.'"