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June 25, 2007
Rhode Island's Bob Tasca III now ranks No.5 nationally in the Top Alcohol Funny Car points standings following a spectacular series of runs in his Ford Mustang at last weekend's National Hot Rod Association SuperNationals at Englishtown, N.J.
"It was a storybook weekend," Tasca said on Monday. "We were told that what we did was the greatest turnaround in the history of the NHRA."
After struggling at the two previous meets in Chicago and Atco, N.J., Tasca's team has a further setback during qualifiying heats on Friday when the car crashed into a bank of sand and gravel after its parachutes failed. "One of the chutes failed to blossom," he said.
He said the car was not too badly damaged, although it picked up about 25 pounds of gravel which had to be cleaned out.
So when the team started competing on Saturday, Tasca said that "Maybe 5 people out of the crowd of 100,000 thought we could win."
Instead, he went on to win all this heats, even beating his nemesis and the current No.2 in the rankings, Frank Manzo of New Jersey. Times for the run were close, with Manzo clocking 5.573 seconds at 248.29 mph against Tasca's 5.585 seconds at 263.92 mph. However, Tasca was quick off the start, with 0.030 seconds compared with Manzo's 0.055 seconds.
That was Round 2. Tasca went on to beat Mickey Ferro (currently No.6) in Round 3 and Bob Newberry (No.4) in Round 4. In Round 1, he beat Fred Tigges (No. 44).
Tasca said short of his wife and three children, the weekend was "the greatest accomplishment of my life." He said the win was also special because so many of his family and sponsors were on hand to see it, including his grandfather, 82-year old Bob Tasca Sr., the patriarch of the Tasca family.
And with six races left, Tasca and his team have plenty of time to make further progress up the standings.
"We're withing striking distance of the championship," he said, but added, "I am very humble, a very, very green driver."
At the same time, he said he was delighted by the way his engine performed. "We didn't hurt a sparkplug," he said. "The motor is happy and if it can run that fast and be happy, look out baby, we can start pulling the string in."
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