Smoking the tires and failing to qualify for the NHRA CSK Nationals was a tough pill to swallow for Bob Tasca III but not nearly as tough as a wide open throttle might have provided. An exploded supercharger provided an escape for the rookie driver.

“Not a good situation,” said Tasca after the throttle. “Our car shook and I pedaled it, but we had something fail with the throttle. When I stepped off of the throttle at the finish line, it was still wide open. I’ll tell you what, I’ve never been afraid in one of these cars, but when you’re going over 300 and your foot is off the throttle and the car is still accelerating, that gets your attention. Fortunately for us, the parachutes both came out.”

Tasca pulled into the shutoff area of the track following his second run with a crack across the top of his Shelby Mustang and smoke coming from underneath. Smoking the tires and failing to qualify for the NHRA CSK Nationals was a tough pill to swallow for Bob Tasca III but not nearly as tough as a wide open throttle might have provided. An exploded supercharger provided an escape for the rookie driver.

“Not a good situation,” said Tasca after the throttle. “Our car shook and I pedaled it, but we had something fail with the throttle. When I stepped off of the throttle at the finish line, it was still wide open. I’ll tell you what, I’ve never been afraid in one of these cars, but when you’re going over 300 and your foot is off the throttle and the car is still accelerating, that gets your attention. Fortunately for us, the parachutes both came out.”

Tasca pulled into the shutoff area of the track following his second run with a crack across the top of his Shelby Mustang and smoke coming from underneath.

“It ended up blowing the blower off of the car, which stopped the engine. We’ve got to figure out why it did that. My crew chiefs are going over the data to find out what went wrong. But regardless of that, the car shook and that was really the end of our weekend.”

Rain cancelled both scheduled qualifying runs for Friday, leaving the Shelby Mustang team only two runs on Saturday to make the race.

“Obviously, for a new team, not to have Friday was a big disadvantage for us. But no excuses,” said Tasca.

“During our first run we smoked the tires. In theory, you shake the tires because you don’t have enough power, and it was pretty apparent that we didn’t have enough power. In retrospect, we probably should have just left it alone and we probably wouldn’t have smoked the tires the second time. We de-tuned it a little bit and that just wasn’t the right call.”

Tasca remained on the bubble until the last four pairs of Funny Cars ran.

“I think we got bumped by a 5.10 and we had a 5.16. Ashley Force, Del Worsham, and a lot of other big-name teams didn’t qualify, but that’s racing. We move on to Gainesville. We just keep going. It’s hero to zero in this sport and just a tough deal.”