Tasca Reaches The Semi At Sonoma

SONOMA, July 19, 2010: Bob Tasca III and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Racing team entered this weekend’s NHRA race at Sonoma with confidence and looked to earn their first West Coast win. Tasca’s weekend was two inches shy of reaching the finals but improved his position in the points standings.

Tasca opened the weekend by driving to the top of the pack. During the first qualifying session, Tasca posted low ET of the session with a 4.152 second run at 300.73 miles per hour. As a result of his low ET pass, Tasca earned three bonus points.

During the late qualifying session on Friday, Tasca improved on his opening pass with a 4.130 second run at 304.39 miles per hour. Tasca was comfortably in the top half of the field and would head into Saturday’s qualifying sessions in the fifth position. After all four qualifying sessions were complete, Tasca and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Racing team kept their 4.130 second run and locked into the fifth position.

“Our Motorcraft/Quick Lane Shelby Mustang showed amazing performance in every qualifying run,” said Tasca. “The only run we missed was the Friday night run. The Mustang ran weak relative to what we wanted to run because we had some mechanical issues. We came out of the box strong and ended the day in the top five.”

Tasca would face Paul Lee during Sunday’s eliminations. It was the first time Tasca would race Lee in the elimination rounds. Tasca defeated Paul Lee with a solid 4.198 second pass at 301.13 miles per hour.

Tasca had lane choice over Cruz Pedregon in the second round. Tasca was first off the line against Pedregon and would lead the entire race. Tasca’s Motorcraft/Quick Lane Shelby Mustang ran 4.152 seconds at 299.13 miles per hour compared to Pedregon’s 4.17 second run at 300 miles per hour. Tasca’s margin of victory was 0.0268 seconds, approximately 12 feet.

In the semifinals, Tasca faced the Dodge Charger of Jack Beckman. The pair had similar reaction times and Tasca was in the lead until the final few feet. Tasca’s red and black Mustang posted a 4.22 second pass at 296.83 miles per hour but was fractions of a second behind Beckman’s 4.221 second pass at 298.73 miles per hour. Beckman’s margin of victory over Tasca was 0.0004 seconds, approximately two inches.

“That semifinal run must have been one of the closest races in the history of the sport,” said Tasca. “It was so close; I’m not sure how NHRA measured it. I’m so proud of the team and thank them for how hard they worked this weekend to put our Motorcraft/Quick Lane Shelby Mustang in the semifinals.”

From unloading the Mustang on Friday to the elimination rounds on Sunday, the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Racing team was probably the hardest working Funny Car team in Sonoma.

“Our Motorcraft/Quick Lane Shelby Mustang made seven pulls down the race track - all phenomenal runs, but we put five motors in the car since Friday,” said Tasca. “We’ve had all kinds of crazy things happen this weekend to our Mustang. As the owner/driver of this team, I take my hat off to my team. They were working on the race car until 1:30 on Friday night/Saturday morning and changed two motors during eliminations today. The guys did a tremendous job this weekend and did everything they could to make our runs incredible.”

Tasca improved his position in the Funny Car points standings but will have to wait until Denver to clinch his spot in the Countdown to 1 playoffs.

“We moved up to seventh in the points and we’re real close to locking in our spot in the Countdown to 1,” said Tasca. “We gambled by making this switch to the Ford BOSS 500 engine mid-season. Our goal was to make the engine transition and be ready for the Countdown to 1. B we need to make the Countdown first and we look to do that next weekend in Denver.”