NHRA Funny Car - Tasca Walks Away With Confidence After Setting New Career Bests

Bristol, June 20, 2011: For Bob Tasca III, Sunday’s eliminations at the Ford NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals pres. by Tri-Cities Area Ford Dealers felt a little like reading a fairy tale written for him, only to find out at the end of the book that the hero was someone else - at least this time.

Tasca and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Shelby Mustang Funny Car team carried two days of momentum with them into the first round at Bristol Dragway. After earning the provisional No. 1 qualifier on Friday, they proved themselves the quickest Funny Car team on the grounds on Saturday with a monster 4.056-second pass at 314.31 mph – a run Tasca said they’d waited four years for. They were ready to go.

Tasca earned an automatic advance out of Round 1 when opponent and ‘One Ford’ teammate Dan Wilkerson’s car made the call, but had no power. Then came the second round and Cruz Pedregon.

Pedregon drove to a 4.110 at 301.47 to Tasca’s 4.185, 309.98.

“Really, the only thing we can explain is that the track went away,” Tasca said. “The car had a lot of wheel speed early; almost smoked the tires going by the Christmas tree at about the 60-foot mark, but it did hang on. Unfortunately, we lost a lot of elapsed time when it was spinning the tires.

“I really can’t attribute it to the tune-up. The guys made a great call. The track was getting a little warm in the second round and I think it bit us. At the end of the day, you’re running Cruz Pedregon, who can go out there and run a 4.07. You have to be aggressive. You kind of live by the sword and die by the sword in this sport. But the best news of all is we’re leaving Bristol with a car that can put up a low 4.0 on the board at over 315 mph. We’re really happy about our performance. We’re very disappointed we didn’t take the trophy home, but we’ll look forward, not back, and certainly we have an awful lot of good to take away from this race.”

Tasca and the rest of the NHRA Full Throttle Series head to Norwalk, Ohio this week, where Tasca’s Ford Shelby Mustang will fly the FordParts.com colors in honor of the website’s first anniversary.

Tasca is a vocal advocate of the website that offers users the ability to buy parts 24/7, VIN-search capability, and provides detailed assembly diagrams on nearly 23,000 parts to fulfill the buying needs of fleets, installers and Do-It-Yourselfers.

“(Bristol) was a huge weekend for our team,” Tasca said. “We did things we’ve never done before. This Ford…I’ve learned it’s about learning; it’s about improving. It’s simply laying the foundation for the championship run. I just can’t emphasize enough how important that 4.05 was (Saturday) night and how important the 4.076, 312.28 was today, and taking those small steps to get ready for a championship run.