Hight DNQs And Loses Point Lead; Dixon Takes Over Top Fuel

ENNIS, Texas — Robert Hight’s surprising failure to qualify in the Funny Car field for the O’Reilly Fall Nationals at the Texas Motorplex cost him the point lead.
But the Auto Club of Southern California Ford Mustang driver is still in good shape for the National Hot Rod Ass’n’s Countdown to the Championship.
Hight is No. 2 now and not by himself in having a disastrous weekend, as boss and father-in-law John Force improved three spots but suffered serious injuries in a second-round wreck that left him hospitalized in nearby Dallas. The Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 6 drivers all were first-round losers, as No. 5 Tony Pedregon won and grabbed the top seeding with one race remaining.
Tony Schumacher’s roller-coaster ride of a Top Fuel season took another dip Sunday with his 11th first-round defeat that cost him the point lead. He qualified 13th in the 16-car field for only his second start this year in the bottom half of the ladder and his worst in 10 races (since a No. 14 spot at Norwalk, Ohio). After watching the previous five pairings end in upsets, the U.S. Army Dragster driver had hoped to continue the trend. But Rod Fuller, who lost the lead he had virtually all season to Schumacher at Indianapolis two races ago, eliminated Schumacher.
Fuller ended the day in second place behind new leader and race-winner Larry Dixon. Schumacher is third heading to Richmond, Va., for the final Countdown cut to four.

• Doug Herbert entered this event in fifth place, 43 points shy of fourth, but he failed to qualify his Snap-on Tools Dragster by 11-thousandths of a second.  
“We didn’t get it done,” Herbert said. “What else can we say? This definitely hurts us in the Countdown, but hey, nobody gave us a chance to make the top eight and we made it happen.”
He has one more race, the Oct. 5-7 Torco Racing Fuels Nationals near Richmond, Va., to try to earn that fourth and final Countdown spot for the next cut. He dropped to seventh place.

• The only track records reset at this event were Chip Ellis’ 6.976-second elapsed time and 191.32-mph speed in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class, which has competed here since 2000.
 
• Tim Wilkerson and his Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevy Impala were spectacular in a not-so-spectacular season, earning the No. 1 qualifying position with a 4.787-second pass.
It held up from Friday, when he said, “I didn’t want to be conservative this weekend. We weren’t aggressive last weekend [at Memphis], and it bit us, and we didn’t qualify. So, I told my guys that we weren’t going to do that again. I said we’d smoke the tires before we do that again. And we ended up No. 1. I thought it would run good but I didn’t know that it would run as good as it did. I’m pretty proud of that and I’m really proud of my guys. It’s a lot of work and they do a good job and deserve this.”

• Force’s accident was a nasty reminder of Kenny Koretsky’s crash two years ago here in Friday night qualifying.
Bruce Allen’s car flipped and slid into Koretsky’s lane and Koretsky, faultlessly in no position to slow down or avoid Allen, T-boned him at top speed. Both ended up at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. Allen has not driven since, and this was Koretsky’s first trip back to the Texas Motorplex since the crash.
“I was a little nervous before Friday’s night run. I’m glad it wasn’t totally dark when we ran…I don’t know if I could’ve made the run. It was nice to get the gremlins out of my system.”
He qualified 16th in the tough class and lost in the first round.
 
• Darrell Russell, the popular Top Fuel driver killed in an on-track accident at Gateway Int’l Raceway near St. Louis in June 2004, is remembered in a newly published book, “Darrell Russell: Broad Smiles, Quarter-Miles.”
The book, by National Dragster Contributing Editor Rob Geiger, is on sale exclusively through JEGS.com for $24.95 and 100 percent of the proceeds will be donated in Russell’s name to DRAW, the Drag Racing Ass’n of Women.