Hell hath no fury like a crew chief scorned, Or in a worst-case scenario, one who comes to the starting line without enough horsepower. 

When Bob Tasca III’s Motorcraft Mustang came to the starting line for a qualifying attempt at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals with conditions favorable to the nitro persuasion, and then it covered the 1,000-foot racing surface like a slug, Tuner Mike Neff wasn’t happy in the least. 

After watching Tasca’s impressive Friday effort plummet to as low as seventh, Neff didn’t make the same mistake again. The result was Tasca’s second No. 1 qualifier of the season and the seventh of his career. 

“Mike came up to me before the run and said, ‘we’re gonna smoke the tires at the hit of the throttle, or this thing’s going to put up a record run,'” Tasca said.

Tasca proceeded to thunder past Q3 superstar Cruz Pedregon with a 3.870 elapsed time at 334 miles per hour. 

“I was celebrating half-track,” Tasca admitted. “I knew that thing was on a big run. Neff and John, they weren’t happy with our run this morning. It was just too slow early.”

If speed means horsepower, then Tasca and Ford teammate Tim Wilkerson were running-inspired as both Mustangs topped 334 miles per hour. Both cars were running a decal in tribute to fallen Ford engineer Mose Knowland, instrumental in developing Ford horsepower. 

“There’s no question these last couple of races we really haven’t caught our stride like we did at the beginning of the season,” Tasca said. “This is the best team race car that I’ve ever had in my career, and you got to seize these opportunities. There’s not one guy on that Motorcraft team that doesn’t know that. Going into Indy with some momentum. Coming out of Indy in the top three would definitely be a goal of mine. 

“Then you got to win races. You’ve got to win races in the Countdown to win this championship. We’ve done that this year. We’ve proven that we can win in this Motorcraft car, and we’ll see where the chips fall.”