NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Robert Hight's Auto Club of Southern California Chevy Camaro SS Funny Car exploded in a ball of fire during his qualifying pass Saturday night at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals.

Hight's car swerved across the centerline and nearly collided with qualifying mate Dave Richards, who took some fine evasive action to stay clear of Hight.

“I think this thing was marching along pretty good,” said Hight, whose team struggled to start his ride initially but was able to get it going and staged without holding up Richards. “It never gave me any indication that anything was wrong. It never nosed over. It just all of a sudden exploded, and next thing I know, it blew me over into the left lane. Luckily, I didn’t hit Richards. We have a lot of work to do tonight with this Auto Club car to get ready for the Traxxas Shootout, but I’ve got the best in the business, and we’ll be ready.”

SUNDAY UPDATE: After a Herculean effort by the crew on his Auto Club Chevy, Hight is ready to go for today's final qualifying and NHRA Traxxas Nitro Shootout. The crew was forced to retrieve the back-up car from the trailer, but, to ensure their best opportunity for a Shootout win, they did pull some important pieces off of the damaged primary car.

“I think it’s standard for all the teams out here to have a back-up car pretty much ready to go, but not everything’s the same,” said Hight. “You can have a back-up car, and it may not be the same, so what we did was we took the clutch system and the fuel system, all the controls, off of our other car and put it on this one. I mean, we’re going right into the first round of the Traxxas Shootout, so it’s not like we have a run or two to work the bugs out of a new car here. Our best shot was to take the clutch and fuel system, the management, off the other car and put it on here and go out there and give us a chance to win the first round.”