custom SmoothFollow script camera position won't change

I have a custom SmoothFollow script due to the fact I have a game where the characters move around a 3D track and this way the camera keep nice and smooth behind the characters.

The only problem I have with it that no matter what I set the distance to it does not change the distance from the camera to the character. The height change does not change one thing as the height of the camera stays on the same level as the character is.

 public Transform target;
 public float distance = 5;
 public float height = 35;
 public float heightDamping = 2;
 public float rotationDamping = 3;
 
 private Vector3 v3To;
 private Quaternion qTo;
 
 void LateUpdate()
 {
     v3To = target.position - target.forward * distance;
     v3To.y *= height;
     transform.position = Vector3.Lerp(transform.position, v3To, heightDamping * Time.deltaTime);
     qTo = Quaternion.LookRotation(target.position - transform.position, target.up);
     transform.rotation = Quaternion.Slerp(transform.rotation, qTo, rotationDamping * Time.deltaTime);
 }

The camera is following the character round perfectly I just want to have the position the camera is looking from to be a more normal 3rd person perspective and not like the camera is being dragged around by the camera...