![\"Hight](\"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/unnamed-1.jpg\")
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For Robert Hight and the John Force Racing team, Saturday’s Night Under Fire wasn’t just another match race; it was a chance to defeat seven other Funny Cars and bring home another trophy. They did just that, beating Cruz Pedregon in the final to win the special event for the third time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re running a foot race: You want to beat these other guys,\u201d Hight said, following another amazing fireworks show at Summit Motorsports Park. \u201cWe came here to put a great show on for the fans, but, really, we wanted to win this thing \u2013 and we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coming into the Night Under Fire, Hight had already won two of the last three NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series races and set the national speed record (339.87 mph) in Sonoma. The Night Under Fire included eight nitro Funny Cars, including two from JFR: Hight\u2019s Chevrolet Camaro and John Force\u2019s PEAK Coolant and Motor Oil Chevy. After one qualifying pass, the drivers with the top two elapsed times advanced to the final round, leaving the other six behind.<\/p>\n
Hight qualified in second with a pass of 3.939 seconds at a slowing 282.66 mph; fortunately, that was enough to race Pedregon in the final, in which he made a terrific run of 3.865 seconds at 321.50 mph, beating Pedregon.<\/p>\n
![\"Hight](\"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/unnamed1.jpg\")
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\u201cIt gives you confidence that you can come in under any conditions \u2013 hot, cold, mile-high, sea level, humidity, whatever \u2013 and run like we\u2019re running,\u201d Hight said. \u201cFirst run today, it was going to run .88, and a piston failed. It wasn\u2019t like a tuneup problem; a piston failed \u2013 we had some different pistons in it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe put some different ones in the final and stepped it up. We ran .86, smooth as glass. It gives you a lot of confidence as a driver.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Force made a respectable run of 3.959 seconds at 323.17 mph, qualifying No. 3, but he was off the throttle early in his consolation race against Ron Capps. Hight collected his third Night Under Fire trophy, giving JFR back-to-back wins. Courtney Force won this race in 2015, with the 2016 version rained out. Hight accepted his trophy from Summit Motorsports Park\u2019s Bill Bader Jr.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an unbelievable show,\u201d Hight said. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing like it. The show they put on for the fans, it\u2019s like none other. We look forward to coming here. I\u2019m honored they invite us every year. They really care about the fans, and it shows. That\u2019s why you have 40,000 people here. The biggest one-day drag race in the world, and we just won it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For Robert Hight and the John Force Racing team, Saturday’s Night Under Fire wasn’t just another match race; it was a chance to defeat seven other Funny Cars and bring home another trophy.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":42899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3470,5029,3399,22],"tags":[1709,423,1819,41,7,4406,1632,440],"class_list":["post-42897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","category-nhra","category-event-coverage","tag-funny-cars","tag-john-force-racing","tag-mello-yello-drag-racing-series","tag-news","tag-nhra","tag-race-results","tag-racing","tag-robert-hight"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/unnamed-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-b9T","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42900,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42897\/revisions\/42900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}