This weekend the NHRA tour rolls back into St Louis for a weekend of intense playoff-series drag racing as the Mello Yello series continues to hammer on to its ultimate finish in Pomona, California. The St Louis race last year was awesome and this year seems like it will live up to the billing as well. The track has set new records with the amount of pre-sale tickets it has sold, there’s buzz all over the place about the various class battles for championships, and everything is wide open among Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, and Pro Stock Motorcycle. There’s one guy who certainly remembers the 2018 race. Robert Hight.
It’s one thing to win a race and pop and engine. In fact, Del Worsham in his championship season did just that, blowing up a car in the lights at St Louis on his way to glory. Robert High took things to the next level, though. With mis-firing cylinders acting like the fuse on a massive bomb, Hight kept his foot down on the way to a win light but it was costly. His car suffered one of the most violent explosions of the year and it was bad enough to basically bust the body and once that happened, the wind caught it, tore the sucker off the chassis and sent it flying like a kite.
I was in the announcer’s booth with Alan Reinhart when this whole scene occurred and there was no more creepy feeling than watching that thing head for the sky, smash through a section of the jumbotron, and land in what I was hoping was some empty space at that big end of the track. Amazingly the only dude that was dinged up with Hight, no one else, especially fans, suffered any problems.
Hight differed a broken collarbone and showing his true grit and toughness, he went to work and developed a carbon fiber chest and collar bone protector to allow himself a continuation of the championship chase he was locked into. Ultimately he came up a little short to JR Todd but it was an awesome battle. The guy is a legit bad ass.
This weekend is going to rule.
