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Autumn Hight will be eight years old in September. When she was just a couple of weeks old, her father, National Hot Rod Association Funny Car driver Robert Hight, got an enthusiastic, spur-of-the-moment offer from John Force Racing teammate Eric Medlen.
Medlen, who adored children, asked, “Can I babysit Autumn?” Hight replied, “No. She’s kind of new.”
That protective quality is what makes Hight, regardless of his status as Force’s son-in-law, the perfect choice as President of the multi-team organization. Force announced the 2009 Funny Car champion’s new role in January 2011. And Hight is almost like a guardian to whom Force has handed his precious baby.
At least 20 NHRA professional racers are owner-drivers, but none has the breadth of responsibility as Hight. Far, far beyond the scope of a family perk, Hight’s job is to preserve the empire that rags-to-riches Force painstakingly has built, in his own words, “from flat nothin’.”
Being The President Of John Force Racing
Each morning Hight arrives at around 6:30 at the Yorba Linda, Calif., shop that houses corporate offices and the John Force Entertainment multimedia arm that Ashley Force Hood guides. That’s so he can communicate with the personnel — including his Auto Club of Southern California Ford Mustang crew — at JFR’s Brownsburg, Ind., headquarters as their day is beginning three time zones away. “I feel honored – this is what John wakes up for every day,” Hight said. “He wakes up to make his company better, to make NHRA drag racing better. And God forbid if something was to ever happen, he put me in a position to do this.”
He (Force) trusts me enough to run what is his passion, what he loves.
Selling comes naturally to Hight, whose parents owned a clothing store in Alturas, in Northern California. “During summers I would work in there. I can sell things,” Hight said. “I’ll tell you what makes it easy … it’s pretty easy to sell John Force Racing. You have a pretty good product you’re selling. It’s a known product. It’s a little tougher to go to a company that knows nothing about drag racing. You have to educate them on what you’re selling them. But companies like Freightliner and Auto Club, they already know and understand drag racing and motorsports. They understand the value.” And for JFR, Hight said, “…has a good history, a winning history. It’s pretty easy.”
Success Comes From Teamwork
JFR has 17 series titles in the past 22 years, 15 from Force. Hight has one, and Tony Pedregon scored the first of his two while under the JFR banner. That added dimension in Hight’s repertoire of skills has given him the confidence to grow with public speaking and weighing in on business decisions that affect the organization’s four Funny Car teams and its lone dragster operation. Part of his comfort is in knowing his gifts, “It’s hard to live up to how John gets up and entertains. I’m not an entertainer. We have different styles.”
Hight said he doesn’t feel any weight on his shoulders, for he doesn’t feel alone. “There are so many people here who make it so easy,” Hight said. “There are so many good people everywhere you look, and they’re all a part of it. I’m just lucky to be a part of it is the way I feel. If there’s a project, a car show, a sponsor function, you name it, everybody jumps on it, tackles it, gets the job done and moves on. We still go to John for advice. We go to Bernie [veteran crew chief Fedderly] for advice. Guido [crew chief Dean Antonelli] is really hands-on for a lot of things other than the race car. Collectively we make decisions that are best for the company.”
It’s one big team. That’s really how it is, and I believe that’s why we’ve had so much success, too.
In 1995, all Hight knew was he had to go to Canada for a match race and work on the clutch of Force’s Funny Car. The next race was at Denver, where he learned he officially was the team’s new clutch specialist. “We won that race, and John gave me the trophy,” Hight said.
Ten years later, he had stepped up as the driver of one of Force’s Funny Cars and he won that race at Denver. “So I gave John the trophy for that,” Hight said. “I got to repay John.”
Hight has repaid Force many times over. He has served as facilities manager of the team’s Yorba Linda property. He married Force’s eldest daughter Adria – who has been John Force Racing’s longtime chief financial officer – and they made “the boss” a grandfather in 2004 with daughter Autumn. Hight began his driving career in 2005 and earned rookie-of-the-year honors, then won the 2009 Funny Car championship. In 2007, when Force sustained multiple fractures and other injuries in a crash at Dallas, Hight even attended to Force’s grooming needs during an extended hospital stay.
Leading The Way In 2012
Through it all, Hight has given up nothing of his competitive edge. This season, he has been the shining star of JFR and the Funny Car class on the racetrack. Force and Castrol teammate Mike Neff squared off in the season-opening final round. Force won, then Neff led the points for a couple of races. But it has been all Hight, winning three consecutive times in the first four races, qualifying No. 1 twice, posting a 12-1 round-win mark, and leading the points heading to the April 13-15 4-Wide Nationals at Charlotte. Remarkably, but still true to form, Hight is humble about his place in the class.
This class and the parity, it has never been this close. It is exciting and it makes winning three in a row that much more special.
Crew chief Jimmy Prock and assistant Eric Lane head the team, and Hight said, “That’s what really is the best part of the job, working with my team, and working with Jimmy. I still love the race car part of it and seeing things get built, organizing what gets built and prioritizing.”
Traditional Schooling Wasn’t For Hight
His parents wanted him to go to college and settle into the corporate world. He complied for awhile, attended a junior college and, Hight said, “…basically went through the motions. This is what I really wanted to do.”
Hight said he wished he had been exposed to more engineering classes but said, “I always wanted to learn. I would go back to the shop and work on the blower dyno. Eventually I wanted to learn everything about the car. That’s important if you want to be a crew chief, and I definitely think it’s important as a driver to know how it all works.” Just the same, Hight said, “I have to realize there’s more to this job than just driving the race cars. There’s fulfilling your sponsorship obligations and treating this like a business, making sure it’s an everlasting entity. We’re going to keep going. But you don’t ever look at anything we do here like it’s a job. You don’t look at the clock. When you do look at the clock, you say, `Man it’s already 5 o’clock?’ A lot’s going on, and we’re all enjoying what we do.”
Hight said he and Adria “…try to get all that [business] done during the day so that when you get away, you get away. Still…whatever it takes, we do.” Working without stress, counting work as a joy, is a luxury not many corporate heads can claim. For Hight, it’s merely a logical step.
The company, Hight said, “Is not going to grow, it’s not going to get any better, unless you make it better. John wakes up in the morning and he works all day on deals and making things better. He lives the company. I really believe what John believes, that you have to live it.”
Right now, Robert Hight is living it up.
