Veteran nitro Funny Car driver Bob Tasca III is returning to action this weekend.

Tasca will make his 2017 season debut at the Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla., which is part of his limited seven-race schedule.

“I have seven contracts signed for this season for races,” Tasca said. “I have some really exciting sponsors to announce. I have a sponsor for Gainesville, which will be announced the first day of the race. It’s a sponsor that will be with me for two races and I’m excited about having them on the car.”

This season, Tasca also will be competing at the Four-Wide Nationals (April 28-30) in Charlotte, N.C., Topeka, Kan., (May 19-21), Epping, N.H., (June 2-4), Englishtown, N.J., (June 8-11), Norwalk, Ohio, (June 22-25) and Reading, Pa., (Sept. 21-24).

“We have some exciting races,” Tasca said. “Our car ran consistently in the 3s last year and ran very strong. We made some subtle changes to the car in the offseason and we want to pick up where we left off and we want to keep going. We have seven races and we are trying to keep the Ford name out there. Tim (Wilkerson) is out there with a Ford and we will have our car out there and hopefully they (Ford) will look at the growth of the sport and they will want to come back. I’m in constant contact with those guys at Ford and they love racing, they love competing and they love winning and we are just trying to put a good show on and represent Ford to the best of our abilities.”

Just getting to Gainesville from his home in Cranston, Rhode Island, is going to be challenging for Tasca and some members of his crew because of the major winter storm in the Northeastern part of the United States.

“I’m a pilot, I got my pilot’s license a few years ago,” Tasca said. “I fly a Cirrus SR22 plane. It’s a long way to take a Cirrus to Gainesville because it’s about a six-hour flight, but we are going to leave Thursday morning, and when you have no other choice, it comes in handy because all of our flights got canceled.”

Getting his Funny Car and hauler to the Gators was not an issue because five members of his team drove the hauler from Charlotte, N.C.

Tasca, a factory Ford Funny Car racer, raced full-time in NHRA’s nitro Funny Car class from 2008-2014. He won four national events and had a career-best finish of fifth in the 2010 point standings. Tasca last won a race at Dallas in 2012. Tasca was 11th in the points in 2014.

Tasca hasn’t raced full time since 2014 because Ford, at of the end of the 2014 season, announced it was no longer sponsoring teams in drag racing.

Tasca, who ran five races last year, will continue to have Tom Leskovan serve as his crew chief.

“I was really, really happy with how he did last year,” Tasca said. “I give him so much credit. Plus, every guy who works on our car have a ton of experience. I do this because I love the sport and I love being around the people of the sport, the fans, and just the camaraderie amongst the teams and the owners, it’s a real brotherhood and I miss it.”

Heading into Gainesville, Tasca isn’t setting any lofty goals.

“This is the first of seven races and our expectations will dramatically increase from race to race, but one thing I love about NHRA drag racing is that anybody can win,” Tasca said. “It’s one of those sports where if you put yourself in a position to win, you can win the race. That’s our focus. We want to put ourselves in a position to win. We want to qualify well and Friday (March 17) will be a big day for us. We had zero testing, this is a case of roll it out of the trailer and go, so Friday will be important day to dial it in and Saturday we will push on it a little bit more and then roll into Sunday and give our self a chance to go some rounds. I would certainly expect as this season unfolds for us we should get some good momentum. I wouldn’t roll up next to our team and take us for granted.”