Tasca/Motorcraft QualifiesThird At Charlotte

CONCORD, September 18, 2010: Bob Tasca III and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Racing team entered the Charlotte race looking to perform well, move up the points standings and closer to the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle Funny Car Championship. Tasca and the team leave the track on Saturday evening confident that they’ve prepared themselves to walk away on Sunday with a victory.

After completing four qualifying sessions, Tasca and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Racing team sit in the third qualifying position. This effort marks their best starting position of the 2010 season and the 15th time this season the team has qualified on the top half of the ladder.

Tasca’s best qualifying pass of the weekend took place during Friday’s night session where he raced his red and black Shelby Mustang to third on the timing sheet with a 4.109 second run at 304.39 miles per hour. Tasca earned one additional point for posting the third quickest ET of the session.

“Our weekend started out pretty good with the 4.10 second run on Friday night,” said Tasca. “We came out this morning and tried to really push the envelope in the third qualifying session and smoked the tires. But in the last session we wanted to go A-to-B and get some good data for race day. We ran a 4.17 which certainly puts us in a competitive place going into tomorrow. It is going to be hot with very similar conditions to what we saw today, so we have a really good baseline. We’re looking forward to racing on Sunday.”

During the first elimination round on Sunday, Tasca faces 14th qualifier Bob Bode. The last time the pair met was during the quarterfinals at Brainerd where Bode defeated Tasca.

“I’ve raced against Bob Bode a few times and the last time I raced him I didn’t like the result,” said Tasca. “I think it is my time to reach the finish line first against Bode since he defeated us in the second round at Brainerd.”

Charlotte is the second of six races in the 2010 Countdown to 1. Tasca’s goals for the weekend included qualifying in the top half of the field, racing to the final and winning a Wally at the team’s home track.

“Charlotte is a race where we need to perform well at to keep our championship hopes alive,” said Tasca. “We qualified strong and we’re ready for tomorrow. We put ourselves in a position to win the race this weekend. It’s going to be exciting. This is a race that I said we have to do well at and we’ve set ourselves up to do that on Sunday.”

NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Funny Car Qualifying Order 1. Cruz Pedregon. 2. John Force. 3. Bob Tasca III. 4. Matt Hagan. 5. Jeff Arend. 6. Del Worsham. 7. Jack Beckman. 8. Tony Pedegon. 9. Melanie Troxel. 10. Ron Capps. 11. Ashley Force Hood. 12. Jim Head. 13. Robert Hight. 14. Bob Bode. 15. Paul Lee. 16. John Smith.