A Tough Rookie Season Hampered By Testing Ban Paves Way For Strong Sophomore Effort …

The NHRA moratorium on testing at national events concluded the moment the final car crossed the finish line during the AAA Finals in Pomona, Ca.

Bob Tasca was testing the very next weekend in Las Vegas.

Imagine a rookie season with no testing and you’ll understand what life was like for the former Top Alcohol Funny Car standout and grandson of the Tasca legend.

A Tough Rookie Season Hampered By Testing Ban Paves Way For Strong Sophomore Effort …

The NHRA moratorium on testing at national events concluded the moment the final car crossed the finish line during the AAA Finals in Pomona, Ca.

Bob Tasca was testing the very next weekend in Las Vegas.

Imagine a rookie season with no testing and you’ll understand what life was like for the former Top Alcohol Funny Car standout and grandson of the Tasca legend.

“The testing ban to a nitro rookie to me was like telling a stick and ball athlete that you can’t practice,” Tasca explained. “I’m not making any excuses for the way our season went because we did really good considering where we came from with a brand new start up team. You consider that we had a new team, new car and new engine combination and then not being able to practice. It put us behind the eight ball all season and we never could get out from behind it long enough to challenge for the championship.

“It’s all about positioning and to end the season the way we did with announcing an alliance with Tim Wilkerson was phenomenal.”

In Las Vegas, Tasca was testing parts of the combination brought to the table by Wilkerson and can already see a turn for the better. Tasca admitted that he and the team are in the process of morphing the two combinations into one formidable force.

“We took several elements of Wilkerson’s tune-up and several of ours and combined them,” Tasca admitted. “It wasn’t a carbon copy of Tim’s combination. One of the biggest advantages that Tim has, in my opinion, is a warmer (climate) tune-up strategy as the season unfolds. For us, we have a larger test budget.

“There are ideas that Tim had and some from Chris [Tasca crew chief Chris Cunningham] that we want to start working on to improve. At the end of the day you just can’t assume that his tune-up is going to work all season long. There are elements of his tune-ups on hot tracks that were phenomenal and elements on a cooler track that wasn’t as phenomenal. The plan is to take what Tim had and make it better. We’re going to do that working alongside of Tim. “

Las Vegas was the first of what could be described as a brutal test regimen.

“We are going to do extensive testing leading into Pomona and throughout 2009,” Tasca added. “We are planning to test after as many as 14 events next year. We didn’t start this program just to compete. We’ve been desirous of a championship caliber team from the day we started.”

Tasca will be the first to admit that while he’s racing aggressively, being a factory-backed race team as well as a Ford dealer keeps him with one eye on the track and one on the evening news keeping abreast of the latest developments regarding the Big Three automaker government bailouts.

“I’m very concerned,” Tasca said when asked how concerned he is with what is transpiring. “I’m very confident that Ford is positioned as the strongest of the Big Three. They have a great product cycle plan which is on the verge of being released.

“This is a perfect storm – consumer credit has never been tighter, the market has never been weaker and last month Ford wasn’t down as much as Toyota. This is not only a big three issue, this is a global auto maker issue. I feel at the end of the day that Congress will do the right thing. Ford will emerge even stronger than before.”

 

VIDEO EXTRA - TASCA CREW HARD AT WORK