Bob Tasca III says he would have bet his house and everything he owns that his Motorcraft Ford Funny Car would have won more than one eliminations round when the team arrived to compete in the ninth Mello Yello event of the year.

Fortunately, no one took the bet or the winner of four NHRA event titles would be homeless this weekend.

Tasca returned to full-time Funny Car racing with a new car and new team. He will start eliminations Sunday with a 1-8 record and ranked 13th in championship points.

“You have to look at our program in a couple of facets; we’re a start-up team with a lot of new parts and pieces,” he said.

But he didn’t return to racing after a brief respite with short-term goals as his priority so he is not disappointed how his team has done through eight of 24 Mello Yello races. He issued stellar marks at the end of the trimester.

“I give the team an A for effort because of how we’ve worked together and an A for just how much progressed with the racecar and how well we have qualified.”

His Ford Mustang has qualified in the top-five twice, most recently two weeks ago at Topeka, Kansas.

Tasca will start eliminations ranked 8th for Sunday’s eliminations in the JEG’S Route 66 Nationals at Joliet, Illinois, after posting his best run of the weekend in Saturday night’s last qualifying session with a time of 3.981 seconds to earn lane choice for the opening round.

“Clearly, I don’t have a very good grade for Sundays,” he said.

“For a lot of reasons, the ball has not bounced our way on Sunday. We’ve had some real oddball things happen like at Topeka when we threw a blower belt in the first round.

“We were the only car that made four full pulls in qualifying at Topeka and the weather was different for each one. At Charlotte in the Four-Wide we led the other three by a car length and a half when it blew up due to a mechanical failure. There have been two or three races when we could have beaten 10 or 12 other cars in the first round but we couldn’t beat the one we were racing.

“Sunday will come to us. I’m not happy with only one round win coming to Chicago. That’s what makes drag racing so gut-wrenching and winning so sweet.

“No one will be surprised when we leave with the trophy.”