Tasca loses close round 1 race with Matt Hagan at Gatornationals

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - It’s never positive to shoot anything out of an NHRA Funny Car other than flames out of the header pipes – but when that object is a head gasket and you’re rapidly approaching 300 mph, the results are rarely in your favor.

Bob Tasca III

Photo by: Team Motorcraft

Despite the malfunction that led to trouble near the finish line, driver Bob Tasca gave opponent Matt Hagan a solid race, clocking a 4.259-second pass at 269.51 mph to Hagan’s 4.091 at 308.

“Both the car and I came down with the flu this weekend,” joked Tasca, who nabbed an early advantage on the starting line with a better reaction time (.064 to Hagan’s .067) despite the cold he developed over the weekend.

“We’ll stay here testing (Monday) and be ready for Las Vegas. We’ve got a lot of talent on this team and good parts, so we’ll see what we can learn tomorrow and move on down the road. We gave him a good race.”

Tasca qualified p14 for the race with a 4.204 at 302.35.

The Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Shelby Mustang Funny Car team will stay at the Gainesville, Fla. track to test Monday before heading to Las Vegas for the fourth of 24 races in the 2013 NHRA Mello Yello season.

Bob Tasca