Hight Takes Road to the Future
November 24 - Robert Hight, who drove the Automobile Club of Southern California Ford Mustang to two NHRA POWERade tour victories this season, was introduced earlier this month as the winner of the Auto Club’s 2005 Road to the Future Award.
The Road to the Future award, which annually identifies the NHRA tour’s Rookie-of-the-Year, was one of several presented during the season-ending awards banquet at the Westin Mission Hills Resort.
Hight, 36, who finished fifth in Funny Car points as a rookie teammate to 13-time series champion John Force, was selected from among three other first year drivers: Jack Beckman, 39, of North Hills, Calif., Erica Enders, 21, of Houston, Texas, and Chip Ellis, 35, of Americus, Ga.
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“It was an honor just to be nominated,” Hight said, “but to win this award for the Auto Club and my teammates at John Force Racing is unbelievable. The thing is, I don’t feel like I’ve done anything special. I’m up here because John gave me a chance and because Jimmy Prock and the crew gave me a great race car.
“My goal is to prove worthy of this honor by continuing to improve as a driver. I know I still have a lot to learn, but I’m in the best place I could be to achieve all my career goals,” said the one-time trapshooting champion. In addition to the prestige of the award, Hight also accepted a check for $20,000 from the Auto Club.
A former crewman on Force’s Castrol GTX Ford Mustang, Hight never had driven competitively in any category, in any racing discipline, before he climbed into the Auto Club Funny Car at last February’s CARQUEST Winternationals at Pomona (Calif.) Raceway.
He qualified the blue-and-white Ford No. 1 in only his third race (the Mac Tools
Gatornationals at Gainesville, Fla.) and won in just his fourth start (the O’Reilly Spring Nationals at Houston, Texas). He later added a victory in the Mopar Mile-High Nationals at Denver, Colo., was the No. 1 qualifier a category-leading six times and, in mid-season, led the POWERade point standings for five races.
“For more than 100 years (the Auto Club) has represented integrity, commitment and professionalism to our millions of members,” said Thomas V. McKernan, president and CEO of the Automobile Club of Southern California. “The Road to the Future Award has come to symbolize these same attributes in (drag racing).”
The winner was selected by a panel of 100 national motorsports journalists through a voting system based on the number of events contested, performance on and off the race track, participation in NHRA promotions and relationships with fans, sponsors and media.
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