Robert Hight continued John Force Racing’s domination of the Funny Car category by racing to victory Sunday at the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Antron Brown (Top Fuel) and Mike Edwards (Pro Stock) also were winners at the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series event.
Hight’s victory, his second of the season, was the fifth in a row for the team including two wins to close the 2010 season by Force and last month’s Tire Kingdom NHRA Gatornationals victory by Mike Neff. Hight, who also won the season-opening Kragen O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals presented by Valvoline, moved into the series lead with the win, his second at this event and 20th of his career.
Robert Hight
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Antron Brown
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Mike Edwards
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Hight, who beat Jim Head, Jack Beckman, and Cruz Pedregon in earlier rounds, held off Johnny Gray in the final round. Hight’s Auto Club Ford Mustang covered the distance in 4.14, 307.79 to edge Gray’s Service Central Dodge Charger at the finish line, which ran 4.16, 301.81.
“It’s not getting any easier, but it’s a lot of hard work,” Hight said. “If you let your guard down any little bit, you are going to get beat. I had close side-by-side races in every round. In the final, Johnny Gray stepped up and made his best run of the weekend. There are no easy ones. Jim Head was right there in the first round. It makes it feel better when you can get a win like this. In this day and age in this competition, it’s awesome. We’ve got to keep it going. This was the 199th career victory for John Force Racing, and it would be great to get the 200th at Charlotte.”
Brown defeated Brandon Bernstein for the Top Fuel victory. It was Brown’s 26th win (10th in Top Fuel) and first at this track. Brown posted a 3.88, 318.84 in his Aaron’s/Matco Tools dragster to cross the finish line in front of Bernstein’s Copart dragster, which trailed with a 3.94, 311.13.
“This car was great all weekend, and it feels good to hit the jackpot here in Vegas,” said Brown, who beat Morgan Lucas, Tony Schumacher, and Doug Kalitta to advance to the final round. “This weekend, everything felt right. Our team just stepped up. We knew it was going to be cooler out there today, and when we ran that [3.84] in the second round, it really raised some eyebrows. We had to give it all we had and kept it going throughout eliminations. We got it done.”
Series leader Del Worsham lost in the semifinals and now leads Brown by eight points. Past multitime world champs Schumacher and Larry Dixon lost in the second round and are third and fourth in the point standings, respectively.
Edwards claimed his first Pro Stock win of the season and second straight at this event by defeating rookie and first-time finalist Vincent Nobile. Edwards ran 6.69, 205.98 in his Penhall/Interstate Batteries Pontiac GXP to take his 29th victory and hold off Nobile, who finished with a 6.71, 205.69 in his Mountain View Tire Dodge Avenger.
The victory moves Edwards to fourth place in the points standings and helps erase a slow start to the season, which included a DNQ in Pomona.
“We started off pretty slow and pretty bad for us really," the 2009 world champ said. "We regrouped and came in here with a new car and made some tremendous runs all weekend. It’s a total team effort. My guys did an awesome job all weekend. They gave me 110 percent, and they never quit. I am so proud of them. It’s a great win, and we want to try to build on this and try to improve as much as we can and keep trying to run good and make good decisions.”
Edwards, the event’s top qualifier, defeated Richard Freeman, Erica Enders, and V. Gaines in the first three rounds. He said his car slowed a bit in the final, and he was lucky to take the win over the Auto Club Road to the Future Award candidate.
“We were fortunate in the final because we made our worst run of the day,” Edwards said. “That Vincent Nobile is going to be quite a Pro Stock driver, and he’s a super talent. He’s going to win some races and give us old guys a run for the money, I can tell you that.”
Pro Stock points leader Jason Line saw his early-season winning streak end in the second round when he lost to Greg Stanfield. Line leads Stanfield by 69 points.
Khalid Balooshi raced to his second victory of the season in the NHRA Get Screened America Pro Mod Drag Racing Series portion of the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals.
Balooshi outran veteran drag racer Rickie Smith in the final. In a battle between two nitrous-injected ’68 Camaros, Balooshi posted a 5.98, 237.13 in his Speedtech entry to power away from Smith, whose car trailed with a 6.01, 237.71.
Balooshi’s car was very consistent throughout eliminations; he posted similar 5.9-second runs in early-round wins over Dennis Radford, Melanie Troxel, and Danny Rowe.
With the victory, Balooshi, from Doha, Qatar, leads the series standings by 56 points over second-place Smith. Defending world champion Von Smith is 10th in the standings after two events.
The NHRA Get Screened America Pro Mod Drag Racing Series continues at the 24th annual O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Spring Nationals presented by Pennzoil, April 29-May 1 at Royal Purple Raceway near Houston.
Related stories:
Friday: Dixon, Pedregon, Edwards lead Friday Vegas fields
Saturday: Force races to Las Vegas Funny Car pole; Dixon, Edwards also lead