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No one in NHRA\u2019s Funny Car class has a hotter hand right now than Bob Tasca III, who earned back-to-back national event wins at Bristol and Norwalk, the two most recent races on a 24-event calendar. Now, as Top Fuel and Funny Car advance to Epping, New Hampshire for the seventh annual NHRA New England Nationals on New England Dragway\u2019s 1,000-mile dragstrip, Tasca\u2019s \u201chome\u201d race holds the premise of perhaps taking a third straight.<\/p>\n
Tasca\u2019s wins in Bristol and Norwalk opened the door for the Hope, Rhode Island native to pick up his first career Funny Car win in Epping, just a few hours from his home and his seventh career flopper win. While he suffered a victory drought from 2012 until last month, Tasca is encouraged that so many fans continue to drive to the New Hampshire track to watch him and, this weekend 14 other racers compete for Funny Car wins.<\/p>\n
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On this Fourth of July weekend, Tasca III is hoping to provide some real fireworks from his 11,000 horsepower Motorcraft\/Tasca Auto Parts Ford Shelby Mustang. \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to Epping and it\u2019s my home track,\u201d said Tasca, currently seventh in the 10-driver slotting toward NHRA\u2019s Countdown to the Championship, which commences after the 18th race of the season, Labor Day weekend\u2019s Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been home to some great memories for me,\u201d he said of the Epping dragstrip. \u201cI\u2019ve won in everything but my Funny Car there, but this is the best car I\u2019ve had going there. It would be great to go up there and do well. New England is a great place this time of year and Fourth of July weekend, it\u2019s going to be a fun time.\u201d<\/p>\n
There will be challenges from both his four-wheeled and two-legged competitors, in addition to the weather on tap this time of year. Yes, it will be hot; yes, it will be humid for much of the proceedings, yet forecasts show a drop of more than 10 degrees from Saturday to Sunday, the second qualifying day offering the possibility of scattered thunderstorms, not unusual in New Hampshire during early July.<\/p>\n
Tasca\u2019s success at mid-season comes in his second year after a return to full-time NHRA Funny Car competition after a few years on the sidelines. After Ford Motor Co. cut its NHRA holdings, Tasca was forced to join his manufacturer of choice on the sidelines. Countless discussions with Ford ensued and Tasca, along with his family were able to convince Ford to return in 2018. Thus began a year of learning the nuances of rules changes and, this year, advancing a new Ford Shelby Mustang body style introduced for Tasca at the start of the season.<\/p>\n
Eric Lane has led Tasca\u2019s tuning ensemble since his return and has been assisted this year through the additions of former John Force Racing (JFR) and Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) crew chiefs Jon Schaffer and Mike Neff. Initially, Tasca had hoped these tuning changes would pay off towards the end of the \u201cregular\u201d season of 18 races, but the threesome have been impressive almost immediately.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s obviously paid off for us and I have all the faith in the world in the group of the guys, that not only will we be ready for Indy (the final regular season contest) but we\u2019re going to be a contender for the championship this year,\u201d Tasca stated. \u201cThis is the best car I\u2019ve ever sat in. It\u2019s the most consistent car I\u2019ve ever been in, it\u2019s as quick as anything I\u2019ve ever driven. When you have a car that goes down the racetrack, it will get quicker because you have the data to look at,\u201d he reminded.<\/p>\n
While he\u2019s got good data from his new car and from his two straight wins, Tasca still must contend with some of the most consistent flopper drivers in the world at his home track. Points leader Robert Hight, currently holding 1,022 first-place points over fellow JFR driver John Force, who has notched 869 points in his Chevrolet Camaro SS, are two of the most consistent racers this year. DSR\u2019s Tommy Johnson Jr. follows in third with 856 points garnered in his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, followed by teammates Jack Beckman (819) and Ron Capps (809).<\/p>\n
Reigning champion J.R. Todd of Kalitta Motorsports is sixth with 764 points in his Toyota Camry, followed by Tasca with 689, last year\u2019s Epping winner, DSR\u2019s Matt Hagan (656), fellow Ford Shelby Mustang racer Tim Wilkerson with 619 and Kalitta\u2019s Shawn Langdon, in 10th place with 580 points. Two-time champ Cruz Pedregon will be trying to take his Dodge Charger to the Winner\u2019s Circle, as will Jim Dunn Racing\u2019s Jim Campbell in a Charger, Jeff Diehl\u2019s Toyota, Mike Smith in a 2015 Mustang and Terry Haddock\u2019s Mustang. Last-minute entries are always possible.<\/p>\n
In addition to Top Fuel and Funny Car this holiday weekend, NHRA\u2019s final exhibition for the 800-cubic-inch engined Mountain Motor Pro Stock class takes place, as well as an appearance by Top Fuel Harley and seven Lucas Oil Sportsman racing classes. The real fireworks occur at Epping on Friday night, when the nitro stars, including Tasca, take their second qualifying opportunities at sunset, lighting up the skies with the bright yellow-orange flames of their powerful projectiles.<\/p>\n
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No one in NHRA\u2019s Funny Car class has a hotter hand right now than Bob Tasca III, who earned back-to-back national event wins at Bristol and Norwalk, the two most recent races on a 24-event calendar. <\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":63556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,3470,3399,22],"tags":[5614,2,41,7,1632,6885,73],"class_list":["post-63554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-column","category-news","category-nhra","category-event-coverage","tag-anne-proffit","tag-drag-racing","tag-news","tag-nhra","tag-racing","tag-tasca","tag-top-fuel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/152-BobTasca-Celeb-Sunday-Norwalk-min-e1562186745376.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-gx4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63554"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63559,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63554\/revisions\/63559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}