Tasca and Motorcraft/Quick Lane Racing Reach Finals; Finish Weekend as Gators Runner-Up

Gainesville, FL., March 14, 2010 – Bob Tasca III and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Shelby Mustang team hoped to have their first back-to-back Gatornationals victory on Sunday, but a dropped cylinder in the finals prevented the team from celebrating for the second consecutive year.

Tasca faced technical alliance teammate Tim Wilkerson in an all-Ford final on Sunday afternoon.  As a result of the dropped cylinder Tasca’s run to the finish line was 4.192 seconds at 287.17 miles per hour compared to Wilkerson’s 4.097-second pass at 303.78 miles per hour. 

“As defending race champ, our expectations were high and we came out looking to repeat our win from last year,” said Tasca.  “Our Motorcraft/Quick Lane Shelby Mustang ran great and did what we wanted it to do, other than in the final round.  Running the finals against Tim was great.  Wilkerson has a tremendous group working for him and I’m happy for them.”

It was a weekend of progressive improvement for Tasca and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Racing team.  The weekend began when rain showers canceled one of the qualifying session on Friday.  During his first run late on Friday, Tasca shook the tires and posted a time of 8.455 seconds at 77.18 miles per hour, which put the team in the 15th qualifying position.

Determined to make the top half of the field, Tasca, crew chiefs Chris Cunningham and Marc Denner and the entire Motorcraft/Quick Lane Racing team went to work on Saturday to post two solid qualifying runs.  With ideal weather conditions, Tasca showed his power in the second qualifying session by running a 4.138-second pass at 306.33 miles per hour.  Tasca was third quickest of the session and moved from 15th to eighth in the qualifying order.

“The decisions that have to be made to make these Funny Cars go down the race track and compete for a championship is amazing,” said Tasca. “Chris and Marc did a tremendous job on Saturday and worked hard to get everything right for us to strong and race ready on Sunday.”  Read the rest of this entry »