Tasca III Dallas final report

TASCA JUMPS TWO SPOTS TO SEVENTH WITH FOUR RACES REMAINING IN NHRA FULL THROTTLE SERIES PLAYOFFS

Bob Tasca III, Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Shelby Mustang

Photo by: Michael C. Johnson

· Bob Tasca III jumped two spots to seventh in the Countdown to One NHRA Full Throttle Series playoff standings after defeating John Force in Round 1 and a first-round loss by Jeff Arend at Texas Motorplex. Force and Arend leave Dallas tied for eighth in the Funny Car category with 2,096 points each.

· This week the NHRA Full Throttle Series heads to Reading, Pa. for the Auto-Plus NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway, the third of six races in the playoff season.

ENNIS, Texas, Sept. 25, 2011 – Bob Tasca III and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang Funny Car team had one goal in mind for the AAA Texas NHRA Fall Nationals – move up in the NHRA Full Throttle Series point standings. And after qualifying drama that had fans on the edge of their seats, move up they did.

Tasca jumped two spots to seventh in the Countdown to One playoff standings after defeating John Force in Round 1 and a first-round loss by Jeff Arend at Texas Motorplex. Force and Arend leave Dallas tied for eighth in the Funny Car category.

“You always got to race the race track, but a lot of times you look back and you’d do 10 things differently, and truthfully, I wouldn’t have done anything different,” said Tasca, who lost to Cruz Pedregon in Round 2 after smoking the tires in the track’s right lane. “We went up there against Cruz, who’s obviously got a great race car. We ran a 4.15 on a 127-degree track on Saturday night and we had full expectations to go up there and run a 4.15, 4.17 on the same track condition. Obviously the left lane was better than the right lane, but still the right lane looked good enough.”

Tasca clocked a 4.625 at 248.61 mph after qualifying ninth with a 4.178 at 300.86. His best run of the weekend, a 4.154 at 300.86 in the fourth and final round of qualifying, was thrown out because the car was ruled too light.

That final round was a story in itself. Tasca shut the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford off after staging after his tree, the starting device, failed to drop. The starting device in the other lane functioned normally.

“I knew one thing. I knew I wasn’t leaving that starting line until someone explained to me what just happened,” Tasca said. “I shut the car off, jumped out and went right up to the starter. I wasn’t leaving, because I never saw the tree. The tree never came on. I rolled through the lights and there was a malfunction. NHRA realized it was the fault of the tree, they found a module that was loose, they fixed it, and we made a tremendous run.”

The car was later ruled too light in that final round.

“I don’t think it played into anything that happened today, because we had the run,” Tasca said. “We basically repeated the run in the first round, then we came out in the second round and tried to repeat it again and missed it by an eyelash. That’s the way the chips fell and we’ll just look forward to Maple Grove.”