It's a safe bet that nobody is more excited about the 2023 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series season than Bob Tasca.

After unexpectedly losing much of his team during the 2022 offseason after a three-win, five-final campaign, Tasca wasn’t sure what the year ahead had in store. And then the pieces started to fall into place.

Just a few months removed from that turmoil, Tasca has more excitement than he has had in years. With new crew chiefs Aaron Brooks and Todd Okuhara calling the shots, Tasca is ready to turn the page and start fresh beginning this weekend at Gainesville Raceway.

And what a start it was, as Tasca drove his PPG Ford Mustang to the top of the charts during opening day at the Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals.

“I was thrown a curveball at the end of the season last year losing all but two of the guys on my team,” Tasca explained. “Being able to bring together Todd Okuhara, who I’ve known for many years, and Aaron Brooks, someone I’ve always admired from afar, is exactly what my program needed. It needed to be shaken up.”

Just three months removed from a fourth-place finish in the NHRA Funny Car championship, Tasca drove his recently debuted PPG machine to a 3.888-second pass at 330.72 mph in the only session Friday. After rain washed out the remainder of the day’s activities, Tasca saw himself in an unfamiliar place atop the charts after starting, and ending the year in 2022, poorly.

“My car didn’t do anything at the beginning of the season and didn’t do enough at the end of the season to really contend for that championship,” Tasca said. “And that was our attitude this offseason -- to make the car run better. Period. I had a good car in the summer months, but it wasn’t good enough when the tracks were cool. But I think you are going to see a very different Tasca Racing going forward. I think you saw it in testing. We were arguably one of the best cars in testing, and then you go and show it on race day and we did that today.”

John Force, who was this week inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame, drove his PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car to second Friday with a 3.898, 335.07. J.R. Todd slotted into third with a 3.900, 329.99,  while Matt Hagan (3.908) and Robert Hight (3.911) rounded out the top five.

If Tasca’s time holds Saturday, it will be the 10th top-qualifier award of his career.

Tasca said that he is most excited to start the year strong after limping out of the gates in 2022. Tasca was as low as ninth last year until a string of summer victories propelled him into the championship conversation. But another falloff late left the team out of contention, and Tasca hopes to change that beginning this weekend.

“What people don’t realize is the championship is decided in the fall, so the only time we get to see those conditions is the first five races,” Tasca said. “You can’t test in July to get ready for Vegas in the fall. The cars that run really good these first five races, I’m going to put some money on those cars at the end of the year. They may fumble the ball a little bit in the summer, but the bottom line is to win the championship you have to run really good at the end of the season.”

And for Tasca, much of that excitement is centered around his new crew chiefs, who completely overhauled the car during testing earlier this week.

“I sit up in the lounge, and it is awesome to have two crew chiefs actually having a dialogue,” Tasca said. “Todd and Aaron have great conversation, and I think you are going to see it reflected in the racecar. They found a lot of things on the car they didn’t like. I don’t know if it was oversights or the way they did it (before), but at the end of the day clearly I had a good baseline. Then through testing, we made a lot of changes -- probably more than I was comfortable making -- but everything that they did the racecar liked. This is a very different car than what I ran back in Pomona.

“It is a very different attitude with this race team right now, and I love it quite frankly. I love the attitude of the team. I love the work ethic. I’ve never seen attention to detail and work ethic like I see in some of these guys. I haven’t been this excited about a season in a long time.”

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