DARNELL GETS HIS FIRST TRUCK SERIES WIN AND A FORCE BEATS A FORCE

Robert Hight drove to his second consecutive victory on Sunday in Atlanta and teammate Ashley Force became the second female in Funny Car history to make it to the semi-final round, and the first to beat her dad John Force.

Erik Darnell, driver of the No. 99 Ford F-150 in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series won his first race of his truck series career at Kansas Speedway.

DEARBORN, Mich., April 29 – Another win for Robert Hight, the first for Erik Darnell, and Ashley Force eliminated her dad – from the competition.

Hight drove his Mustang to victory on Sunday in Atlanta, which was his first win on that track. While keeping his car in the groove all day on Sunday, Hight had to adapt throughout the weekend to the new safety measures his team is taking inside the car.

“I’m still getting used to all the additional safety stuff,” Hight said. “I changed my belts this weekend, re-routed them, and while it was better for my comfort level, it wasn’t good for tying me down and keeping my head steady. So there was a lot of vibration (and) I drove it out of the groove on three of four qualifying runs.”

Hight’s teammate, Ashley Force, had quite a weekend herself with becoming only the second female in Funny Car history to make it to a semi-final round of competition and the first female to beat her dad John Force. The Force duo met in the first round of competition on Sunday, with Ashley coming out with the win.

“I think it’s the funniest thing,” said Ashley Force. “He’s got all these daughters and he’s been racing all these years and no woman has ever beaten him before.”

Besides Ashley Force, another Ford Racing driver experienced a first this weekend as Erik Darnell captured his first victory in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race in dominating fashion on Saturday. Darnell took the checkered flag with more than a 10 led the field for 91 of 166 laps at Kansas Speedway.

“It feels awesome,” said Darnell. “We’ve been trying so hard and we’ve been so close so many times and I haven’t been able to pull it off. We were finally able to put all of the pieces together and then finish this thing.”

From the Midwest in Kansas down to the Deep South, NASCAR racing was all over the place this weekend. Nextel Cup and Busch drivers raced at Talladega Superspeedway where David Gilliland was the top Ford in Sunday’s Nextel Cup race and David Ragan carried the flag for Ford on Saturday during the Busch Series race.

Gilliland, who has started from the front row in each of the three Cup restrictor plate races he’s been in, had a great car all day, and was able to bring his No. 38 Fusion home in fourth place and in one piece.

“I tried to learn as much as I could,” said Gilliland, who is in his first full season with Robert Yates Racing.