NHRA Funny Car - Tasca Ready To Move Up At Dallas

ENNIS, Sept. 22, 2011: Bob Tasca III and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang Funny Car are headed to Texas with all eyes on doing some damage in the NHRA Full Throttle Series point standings.

Tasca, ninth in the points, fell one position after a first-round loss to ‘One Ford’ teammate Tim Wilkerson at last weekend’s race at zMAX Dragway in Concord, N.C. That was the first race of the NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship, where all five fulltime Ford Funny Cars kicked off their bids to bring home the ultimate Wally.

Only the top 10 drivers in the point standings advanced to the playoffs and remain eligible for the championship title.

“(Charlotte) was unfortunate, but we can withstand one first-round loss,” said Tasca, who is in a bid for his first season championship title. “You can’t withstand two or three if you want to win a championship. We’re looking forward to Dallas. It’s three in a row in this East Coast swing. We’ll hit Dallas. Then we’ll go to Maple Grove.

“It’s back-to-back-to-back and truthfully, we’ve just go to really focus on going rounds and taking the trophy here in these next two races.”

The NHRA Full Throttle Series is on Race 2 of three in a row this week. Tasca heads to Reading, Pa. next weekend after this stop at Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Texas.

“Dallas is the second race of the Countdown,” Tasca said. “You have to do good. You have to go out there and with a first-round loss in Charlotte, you’ve got to put this thing in the finals or take a win. We’ll be very focused on taking the trophy in Dallas. It’s a great facility, a great place to race. Clearly the conditions are going to be a lot warmer than we saw (last) weekend.

“We’ve got a lot to be proud of, but we’ve got to do some damage in Dallas.”

Last weekend’s race only emphasized the importance of weather to the world’s fastest motorsport. Crew chiefs monitor the weather every day to predict what will come on race day and adjust their preparations on the car accordingly.

While wild swings in temperature dogged the team in North Carolina, this weekend’s race promises to return the Series to a hot track. The Motorcraft/Quick Lane team will look at data they gathered in similar conditions over the summer this year to prepare for the Motorplex.

“If it’s going to be in the mid-80s, it’s going to be similar to a lot of races,” Tasca said. “The conditions we saw in Charlotte we see maybe three times a year. When it’s 110 degrees out, you see maybe those two times a year. But when you get to Dallas and it’s in the mid-80s, those are conditions that every team out here has a whole lot of data on, so we’ll have plenty of runs to look at for that race.”