Eric Medlen's death has saved another life. This according to Bob Tasca, driver of the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Shelby Ford Mustang Funny Car.

Ironically, Tasca's violent ride occurred in a fourth round qualifying match up with John Force, Medlen's car owner at the time of his catastrophic accident.

“The car was on an awesome run and we were just a click behind John,” said Tasca as he started to describe the wild ride. “It was dead straight as an arrow and I am not sure what happened first. I remember the car smoking the tire and I remember shutting it off. When it gets out of shape at that point in the race track, it will make some violent moves. I was compensating but it was like I wasn’t even driving it.

Eric Medlen's death has saved another life. This according to Bob Tasca, driver of the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Shelby Ford Mustang Funny Car.

Ironically, Tasca's violent ride occurred in a fourth round qualifying match up with John Force, Medlen's car owner at the time of his catastrophic accident.

“The car was on an awesome run and we were just a click behind John,” said Tasca as he started to describe the wild ride. “It was dead straight as an arrow and I am not sure what happened first. I remember the car smoking the tire and I remember shutting it off. When it gets out of shape at that point in the race track, it will make some violent moves. I was compensating but it was like I wasn’t even driving it.

“And then it made a very violent move to the centerline. It wouldn’t come back and then it actually clean snapped the rim from the hub. It broke the weld on the rim. Then it came back towards the wall real hard. I had enough sense to try to stop it. There were no brakes. It cut the caliper clean off of the car. I knew the ‘chutes were out. I shut the fuel pump off and I actually had the car somewhat straight.”

With the car under control, Tasca was able to worry about the next step in the process – getting stopped.

“I got on the radio and said, [to crew chief Chris Cunningham] ‘This may be interesting. I have no brakes'. At that point, [the body] fell down on the chassis and I could feel [the car] dragging.

When the car started to smoke the tires, Tasca went into reaction mode. There was no time to think about what he was going to do; he just did it.

“I knew that the car lost traction. You just go into what you normally do … off the throttle … you keep the car straight but then I knew something was terribly wrong. The way it was throwing me around and the steering input … I was one hand on the wheel trying to steer it so hard. Then I felt the car shift. I was looking out the window differently.     
“I thought the tire came off. I thought that we had lost the rear tire. As a driver, you worry about the driver next to you more than you worry about yourself. I knew John was next to me but I didn’t see him. When the car started to get violent and I lost vision, I didn’t know where John was. I was just focused on keeping the car in my lane. Fortunately John made a good run and was way past everything. And, we didn’t hit the wall.

“If we got any luck, we didn’t ruin the race car.”

While not identical to the wreck in which Medlen died, it was close.

“[Medlen] broke a rear end and the oscillation is what did so much damage to the car.”

Editor's Note: Jeff Stange of Strange Engineering contacted the CompetitionPlus.com office on Tuesday and offered the following rebuttal to comments made by Tasca.

“After looking in the Eric Medlen crash, it was determined that the tire blew and the oscillation of that mass is what broke the chassis. Upon receiving the rearend, it was fully intact. We fully inspected every part of that rearend.”

With all the changes made to the cars since Tasca walked away with only minor discomfort.

“Thanks to the Han’s Device, the padding in the cockpit, I was being thrown around in that cockpit pretty violently. Other than a sore back, I have no big issues. I just hope the race car isn’t bent because if it is that will really set us back for tomorrow.”

More will be known about the incident once the team is able to download the information from the Ford Blue Box which is installed in all of the nitro burning cars – Top Fuel and Funny Car.  

“We are looking forward to downloading the Ford Blue Box because that technology is going to let us know what I experienced. Fortunately everything went okay. That’s top fuel racing. It’s a violent deal.”

After getting the wheel back from the NHRA, crew chief Chris Cunningham did his best to describe what he felt happened.

“It appears the weld that holds the inside bead ring onto the wheel itself broke when we smoked the tires, but I can’t tell for sure,” said Cunningham. “It’s kind of a grey area. You could see our car in the video drop down on the right side so the wheel, at some point, did give up. It is inconclusive now.”

Until further inspection can be performed Cunningham said the team will take preventative action with their remaining wheels.

“Preventively right now, we’re going to take every set of wheels and tires we have and dismount them and look at the welds inside every wheel we own.”

Both Tasca and Cunningham confirmed this is the first time they had ever seen a wheel come apart in this manner.

“We’ve never seen anything like this before now.” 

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