Instead, the tenor of his talk was modest, unpretentious, content.

The Funny Car owner-driver of the Motorcraft/QuickLane Ford Mustang had earned his third No. 1 qualifying position in nine Camping World Drag Racing Series events Saturday evening at the Summit Racing Equipment Nationals at Norwalk, Ohio. The 12th No. 1 start of his career came on the heels of a weekend at Bristol, Tenn., in which he won the postponed New England Nationals from Epping, N.H.

But rather than giving in to braggadocio, Tasca chose gratitude, even for a situation that didn’t start out as one of his most pleasant ones. By this ninth of 21 races on the tour, after a disappointing season that ended with a slap in his face, Tasca flipped the script with some candid insight.

He had heaped praise on his two previous crew chiefs ever since he had hired them, and even before the end of last season and despite some sweet successes with Tasca, they had expressed their desire to bolt for greener pastures. Saturday it was time to share both his hurt feelings and his subsequent joy.

“There weren’t many who would put $5 on me after my previous crew chiefs pretty much fired me, right? So I got fired by everyone but two people. I hired all the people that they fired to get my team. And at the end of the day, what sweet serendipity it was, right?” Tasca said. 

“It just goes to show you: you can have a lot of talent, but hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard,” he said. “That’s the harsh reality of it.

“These guys, maybe on paper, aren’t as talented as the team I had last year. But they’re the hardest-working group of people I’ve ever been around, ever – [with] attention to detail like I’ve never seen in my racing career,” Tasca said.

The magic that money often can’t buy and that even genius can’t guarantee comes from chemistry. 

“I’ve given them all the parts and pieces that they’ve needed,” Tasca said of his current team that’s point him in the right direction, probably to the surprise of people who thought the Funny Car crown would be a tug-o-war among Ron Capps, Matt Hagan, and Robert Hight. “The one piece that you never know when you go in – and I started with zero going into this season – is chemistry. Will the chemistry work between the crew chiefs and the team? And do you have two crew chiefs or one?

“I thought I had an incredible combination with Todd [Okuhara] and Aaron [Brooks]. And now I know I have an incredible combination,” Tasca said. “When you get the chemistry – like catching lightning in a bottle – you want to keep it in that bottle.

“I’m just fortunate to have had the opportunity to pull together the guys that are on this car right now – a little bit out of desperation at the time – with the hopes of doing something special. And man, from the first run at testing at Gainesville till now, they ain’t doubting us anymore, I can tell you that much,” he said.

“And that’s what makes this even more special to compete in the top three. That’s what it takes to win the championship. You have to be in the game. You have to be in the conversation. You don’t have to go No. 1 in the points. But you have to prove that hot track, cold track, you can perform. And that’s exactly what we’ve done.

“So I believe the best is yet to come for this team. We’re in infancy, compared to teams that have had thousands of runs under their belts together.”

He cited three-time and current champion Capps, calling him “one of my heroes in the sport.” And he said, “You beat those guys with a brand-new team, it’s cool.”

Tasca topped early leader Capps in Saturday qualifying, using his 3.884-second elapsed time at 329.26 mph to slide Capps into the No. 2 berth with his 3.887-second run and class top speed of 331.28 mph. Following Capps were (in order) Hagan, Alexis DeJoria, Tim Wilkerson, Robert Hight, and J.R. Todd. So Tasca showed he and his operation are on the same level as champions and other perennial title contenders.

“Last year I had a really consistent car when it was hot, but it didn’t run when it was cold. We just weren’t in the conversation. Hence, we couldn’t win the championship.

As for the 2023 season, Tasca said, “We weren’t as consistent as the Cappses and the Hagans early in the year. You’re starting to see that change with this car. You’re starting to see it more consistent. We’ve seen this car perform at a high level, with multiple No.1 qualifiers. We’ve struggled a little bit with consistency.

“What I like even more than the No. 1 qualifier this weekend is we’ve run 3.90, 3.88, 3.90. The car was absolutely dialed in, pretty much ran to the hundredth what the crew chiefs wanted the car to run. And that was the last little missing link of this team to go on a real run.  Hot track, cold track, we’ve proven that we can run low E.T. You’re starting to see the consistency of the car.”

After losing in the opening round to Bobby Bode, Tasca will meet Bode once again in the first round of eliminations Sunday. And Tasca did say Saturday night that he hopes to give his “good friend Bobby Bode . . . a little payback tomorrow.”

But really, consistency was all that truly mattered to Tasca Saturday – certainly not revenge on Bode nor even an in-your-face taunt to the ones who abandoned him last November. He had promised the Ford executives that he would put the Blue Oval in the winners circle and contend for championships. With Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park a skip away from the Ford Motor Company’s headquarters at Dearborn, Mich., Tasca knows consistency and chemistry can combine for powerful results that his competitors will not regard lightly.

“When you can put all that together, which we’re focused on doing,” he said, “you become a really dangerous team. We’ll be ready for ’em.”