Robert Hight used a last ditch 4.849 in his Auto Club Ford late Saturday afternoon to steal the pole position in Funny Car from Tim Wilkerson by a thousandth of a second as qualifying raced to a close at the 9^th annual SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Tony Schumacher and Ken Koretsky, two of the three NHRA Pro drivers who led their respective fields on Friday, retained the top spots following a warm and sunny Saturday. Schumacher claimed his 48th career Top Fuel pole with the 4.510 he recorded on Friday evening, and Koretsky held off all challengers in Pro Stock to clinch the first low qualifier award of his long Pro Stock career.

Robert Hight

With Funny Car qualifying delayed until nearly sundown, Wilkerson’s 4.850 from Friday was seriously challenged as several drivers made their best runs of the weekend, and there was plenty of shuffling throughout the field. Hight, whose  previous best was a 4.909, qualified on top for the 24th time in just 73 races after edging Wilkerson.

“It’s been feast or famine for us all year,” said Hight. “We still haven’t made very many runs this year. In fact, we don’t have half the runs we normally should, so after that DNQ in Houston, we took one big giant step backwards. We re-did the clutch. We realized that we don’t need a clutch to run 4.6s in these cars anymore. We backed it down a bunch and got down the track on all four runs.”

“On that [4.84] run, I knew it was good because the motor revved up near the finish line. It might have been the best run we made all year because the motor was happy, and I could tell from inside the car."

Hight's boss, John Force, will not be part of Sunday’s final eliminations for the second straight year at the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals after missing the 4.99 bump with a 5.02 best. Force has only DNQ’d 13 times since his Funny Car debut in 1978, a span of 499 races.

"There’s gonna be a big name at every race that misses the field," said Hight. "I hope I’ve had my turn and now John has had his. My goal was to qualify at every race because those [qualifying points] are super important. The way the Countdown works this year, you can’t afford a DNQ after Indy, or it will be all over.”

Although he lost the top spot, Wilkerson remains one of the favorites after making three solid runs, including a 4.95 in the heat of the day on Saturday. Wilkerson, who is still seeking his first final round appearance of the year, will be paired with Jim Head in the opening round.

Five races into his professional career, nitro rookie Bob Tasca III will make his first start from the top half of the field. Tasca’s 4.864 blast from Friday is the third quickest Funny Car run of the event, meaning that the third-generation racer will be paired with Melanie Troxel’s Mike Ashley-owned Dodge when eliminations begin.

Two weeks after earning a runner-up finish in Houston, Ashley Force will start from the top half of the field. Force wheeled her Dean Antonelli-tuned Castrol GTX Mustang to a 4.867 for the third spot. Force also has one of the most consistent cars in Las Vegas, posting a 4.97 during today’s qualifying to establish a solid baseline heading into tomorrow’s final eliminations.

The other notable non-qualifiers in Funny Car include Houston semifinalist Tony Bartone and Jerry Toliver.

Tony Schumacher

While most other Top Fuel drivers fought unsuccessfully to avoid tire smoke, Schumacher continued to assert his dominance over the field with two more consistently quick runs in his Alan Johnson-tuned U.S. Army fueler on Saturday. After running a 4.67 in the third session, Schumacher powered to a 4.57 late in the afternoon to wrap up the Full Throttle award for the weekend and claim his fifth straight pole in Las Vegas.

“I think it will be hotter tomorrow, and we’ll have to back it down, but right now, it’s all good,” said Schumacher. “We went down the track four times, and that’s an additional eight points that might help us at the end of the year. That last [4.57] run was nice, but the car moved around a bit at the top end, and I almost clicked it off.”

“Most of our runs were very similar on the computer, so I think we’re set. Today the track was 111 degrees, but tomorrow it might be 130. As the driver, it’s not my responsibility to worry about that. I just get in and push the pedal down.”

Three-time Las Vegas finalist Doug Kalitta remained in the second spot following his 4.541 run Friday night. Kalitta drove his Mac Tools dragster to a 4.67 on Saturday morning to solidify his race-day tune-up. Kalitta will be paired with two-time NHRA POWERade champion Larry Dixon in one of the most highly-anticipated round one match-ups. Kalitta’s teammate, Hillary Will, appears poised to collect her first Top Fuel win after qualifying a solid third. Will, who backed up Friday’s 4.56 with a 4.64, will be paired with the third Team Kalitta entry of Dave Grubnic on Sunday.

Alan Bradshaw, who qualified No. 1 at the last two events in Gainesville and Houston, missed the field in Las Vegas. The former Top Alcohol Dragster national champion, who now wheels Dexter Tuttle’s Shell V-Power/Vis Viva dragster, was not qualified heading into the final session. Bradshaw smoked the tires at the hit of the throttle and could only muster a 6.37. Bradshaw was temporarily qualified, but Dave Grubnic returned a few moments later to knock him from the field with a 4.871 in the Team Kalitta DHL entry.

The bump spot is held by Steve Chrisman, who posted a steady 5.10 at 290.94 mph.

Ken Koretsky

With warm temperatures and lots of sun that drove track temperatures into the triple digits, Koretsky’s 6.724 effort from Friday held as the top spot in Pro Stock qualifying, giving the self-proclaimed “Captain Chaos” the first low qualifier award of his career. Proving that Friday’s performance was no fluke, Koretsky posted the second-best run on Saturday with a 6.727, just a thousandth of a second behind Kurt Johnson, who matched his Friday run to the thousandth with a 6.726 for the third spot in his ACDelco Cobalt.

“We can win this race,” said Koretsky. “We did exactly what we wanted to do today. We tried something and it worked. On the last run, I was trying to cut a decent light and I did, but then I forgot to put it in second gear, so we lost out on the Full Throttle award. That’s the only problem we’ve had.

“This has been a great experience, especially here in Las Vegas because I love this place so much. Last weekend, I hit a big jackpot at the Borgata in Atlantic City, and I’m doing pretty well in a big slot tournament this weekend at the MGM Grand, so things have been going pretty well for me lately. Some people have asked me why it took 200 races for me to qualify No. 1, and I’ve told them that if Greg [Anderson] and Jason [Line] weren’t racing I would have done it three or four times. This is a tough class. We have 20 or more cars that can win if everything goes right.”

Former POWERade Pro Stock world champion Greg Anderson, who was not among the top 12 heading into Saturday’s final two qualifying rounds, made one of the quickest runs of the day to put his Summit Pontiac into the ninth position. Anderson, who hasn’t missed a Pro Stock field since 2002, will square off against former Super Stock champ Greg Stanfield in round one tomorrow.

Anderson’s Summit Racing teammate, Jason Line, was also among the performance leaders on Saturday, posting a 6.725 for the No. 2 qualifying spot. Line will be paired with the Dodge of No. 15 qualifier Johnny Gray in eliminaitons.

Former Sport Compact star Matt Hartford continues to impress in his first season in Pro Stock, driving his David Nickens-powered Dodge to a 6.775 to qualify on the bump spot. Hartford has qualified at all five events this season.

The notable non-qualifiers in Pro Stock included Tom Hammonds, who supplied the engine for Koretsky’s Nitro Fish Pontiac, and Larry Morgan, who missed the field for the fifth time in five races. Although Morgan’s Lucas Oil Dodge will not be a part of Sunday’s final eliminations, the Ohio-based engine builder has three customers in the field: Phoenix champ V. Gaines, Vegas Fuel driver Max Naylor, and Gray.

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