Robert Hight can’t help his sentimentality. The defending Funny Car world champion breathed a sigh of relief following the disqualification of Cruz Pedregon following the final qualifying session at the NHRA Route 66 Nationals. Because the NHRA disallowed Pedregon’s run, which would have placed him in the field, Hight’s original opponent John Force was moved up in the qualifying list.

“It is hard for me especially to race John because it is hard to have the same ‘go for the throat’ feeling as you do for the other competitors,” admitted Hight, who retained the top spot on the strength of Friday’s 4.067. “If it wasn’t for him I would not be sitting in that race car. He gave me this opportunity. You do have to blank all that out. You have to go up there and when we race my team wants to beat his team and they want to beat us. You just have to put all that out of your mind and focus on the tree.”

Robert Hight can’t help his sentimentality. The defending Funny Car world champion breathed a sigh of relief following the disqualification of Cruz Pedregon following the final qualifying session at the NHRA Route 66 Nationals. Because the NHRA disallowed Pedregon’s run, which would have placed him in the field, Hight’s original opponent John Force was moved up in the qualifying list.

“It is hard for me especially to race John because it is hard to have the same ‘go for the throat’ feeling as you do for the other competitors,” admitted Hight, who retained the top spot on the strength of Friday’s 4.067. “If it wasn’t for him I would not be sitting in that race car. He gave me this opportunity. You do have to blank all that out. You have to go up there and when we race my team wants to beat his team and they want to beat us. You just have to put all that out of your mind and focus on the tree.”

Hight will race Justin Schreifer instead as he enters final eliminations as the No. 1 seed for the fourth time in 2010. The switch in opponents won’t affect Hight.

“It doesn’t change your mindset,” Hight explained. “We don’t race the other guy. We go up there and race the conditions. (Crew chief) Jimmy (Prock) knows what he can get away with based on the conditions. We go up there and do our deal. It was just like in Topeka when we had a single we would have looked stupid if we would have gone up there and smoked the tires.

“What did we do? We went out there and set low ET for the whole weekend. We didn’t do anything stupid. We didn’t put the car where we hadn’t put it before. We just went and raced the conditions. There is no difference in how we approach racing Justin or John tomorrow morning. If I try to make a difference I’ll be late on the light. You have to go up there assuming the other guy is going to be perfect. You just have to do your job because if you don’t he is going to beat you.”