Funny Car racer Bob Tasca III remembers the time he first raced a purpose-built, doorslammer drag car. It was 1996, and the third-generation Ford icon was an aspiring drag racer hoping to get his NHRA competition license.

Tasca was behind the wheel of a Ford Probe Pro Stocker at Roy Hill’s Drag Racing school. Thursday at Lucas Oil Raceway Park Tasca returned to the doorslammer world albeit behind the wheel of a car, which at wide-open throttle, doesn’t create as many decibels as his school instructor barking out criticism.

Tasca is racing the Cobra Jet 1400, an all-electric version of the popular Factory Stock Showdown vehicle.

“I definitely had some visions of Roy when I pulled up to the start line in that car,” Tasca said with a smile. “Doorslammer racing is where I started from; it’s where a lot of racers start from. It’s great to go back to my roots and get in a doorslammer and have that Mustang logo on the front of the car and see what we can do.”

Doorslammer racing might be his roots, but doorslammer racing in a car which measures horsepower in voltage isn’t. When Tasca says he loves the electric Cobra Jet, he’s not toeing the company line.

“I think there’s a lot of traditionalists out there and I’m always going to have a piston in my heart, but the bottom line is when you get in some of these electric cars and how fun they are to drive, I mean you can’t make that up,” Tasca said. “It puts a smile on your face, and for me, it puts an even bigger smile when you drive by those gas stations, and you don’t have to pull in and put gas in your car anymore.

“It’s coming. It’s not tomorrow morning. This going to be a long cycle, but at the end of the day, I think there’s that old famous line that Henry Ford said, ‘If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses,”

“He came out with the car and he came out with the gas engine, and I think that that holds true to today. I think a lot of people would want faster cars and more fun to drive. With electrification, we can do that very efficiently, very cost-effectively as the technology unfolds. It’s going to be fun to show all the Ford fans and race fans this weekend just how fast we can go in an electric car.”