Bob Tasca III know his team is a championship contender in NHRA’s nitro Funny Car class.

On Sunday, his team proved that to be true at the Denso Sonoma (Calif.) Nationals.

Tasca clocked a 3.911-second elapsed time at 325.61 mph to beat the legendary John Force who clocked a 3.998-second run at 326.56 mph.
“I said in the interview, some points of the season, we look kind of silly because the only reason why we're out here is to run for a championship period,” Tasca said. “And we didn't have a car that could do that for most of the season. We didn't have a car that could do that at the end of last season. We led the points most of 2021. And we couldn't run when the conditions got good. And when you race with Jon Schaffer and Mike Neff, that's all these guys think about is winning a championship. So, we tested a lot this season. We made some of the quickest and fastest runs I've ever made in my career during testing, which I used to get (teased) by my buddy there, Tony Pedregon. He said, ‘Yeah, you're winning the Monday Nationals.’ The truth is, we sacrificed a lot this season to get to where we are right now. And when we came into this race, we really didn't have a handle on this setup. It showed a lot of promise. In testing, we put it maybe once or twice in a few races during the year.”

Testing and real results finally came together in Sonoma.

“Mike was just determined that it had to be this weekend,” said Tasca about things clicking. “And Friday, the car ran good early and shook. Saturday morning, it did kind of the same thing. And Saturday night I'm like, ‘Mike, maybe we should just go back to what almost won the last two races.’ And he's like, ‘No, no, no, I'm close.’ It made that run Saturday night, and that was really a pretty extraordinary run. I'm not quite sure anyone has ever been that quick on 118-degree track. We ran that 3.87 with a five, and then it came up this morning and it did the same thing, did the same thing in the second round. We slowed it down a little bit against Robert. We were a little worried about the track, and then ran lights out in the finals. So, I guess this has come full circle for us because we just wanted to be ready.”

With his recent string of success, Tasca has moved up to fifth in the points standings.

“With the way the points are in the regular season, really doesn't matter,” he said. “As long as you can be in the top five, top six, anyone can win the championship. But you can't win the championship if you can't run 87s and conditions like you see right here. It's not going to happen. You can think it can happen. You can wish it can happen, but it's not going to happen. And this is a setup. And I think we just kind of put the whole field on notice that, when the conditions are like this in the Countdown (the last six races of the season), we're going to be right with them.

“And now you can throw your name in the hat to run for the championship. Nobody guaranteed a championship. Robert was trying to guarantee they was going to sweep the swing. He's sweeping, but he's not sweeping the swing, right? But you got to be in the conversation of it. And that's what I think we've done here this weekend. And we just got to load this thing up and go to Seattle and try to do the same thing.”

This was Tasca’s first win of the season and the 10th of his career. 

Tasca’s victory should not come as that big of surprise he made it the finals of the previous two events in Norwalk, Ohio, and Denver, Colo., before losing to Robert High twice in those final rounds.

On Sunday, Tasca disposed of Jason Rupert, Blake Alexander, Hight and then 16-time world champion Force.

Tasca did acknowledge testing at races to get the tune-up right is a mental grind.

“It's hard,” he said. ”It's more than dedication. It's mentally debilitating. We look silly some races. I get emails from fans like, ‘Hey, listen, did you guys forget how to race.’ Right? I mean, we got some veteran people, but at the end of the day, we look at the early numbers. When we mean early numbers, we mean 60 feet and we hyper focus on that because if you can't get the car to move early, you'll never get it to run what it needs to run at the finish line.

“It all is in the first 300, 400 feet. And we just couldn't do it. And Mike and John, and I won't say they don't care about winning and losing races, they just care about getting a setup that can go run for a championship. And if we had to sacrifice some races, which we certainly did this year, that's what we've done to get here. I mean, this car showed the field that we had some of the quickest early numbers ever on 118-degree track. And then when the track cooled down, we were there. When it heated up a little bit, we were there.”

Tasca said when his car is running smooth it is more than a relief.

“It's exciting for me as a driver because it gets difficult to put all this in and lose first round,” he said. “And see the Hights and the Hagans go out there running numbers, and we're struggling, right? And it's not a lack of knowledge. What we are challenged with, and all of these teams are here challenged with, primarily the inconsistency of clutch discs, right? So, they're not the same. The motor we can be made the same, heads we can make the same, the blowers we can make the same, but the clutch discs are never the same. And that's what we're challenged with. And as you go through iterations of batches, these guys have figured out a way where they can take a clutch setup and make it act the way they want to act. It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort. I give a lot of credit to Ford. We've been working with our engineers on our clutch program, and they've helped us. I joked this weekend. I said, "I think they put Ford autopilot in the car.’ I'm telling you right now, I mean this very humbly, there were runs today that you didn't need Bob Tasca in the car. You could have taken a fan out of the stands, sat them in that thing, and just said, ‘Listen, when that light goes yellow, hit the throttle, close your eyes, count to 3.8, and then just hit that button right there and the car will stop.’ And that's a testament of the setup, right? I mean, that thing was as straight as an arrow all day long. And the quickest and fastest runs you make are typically like that.”

Despite his recent success, Tasca isn’t making any bold predictions.

“I think, hey, listen, Robert (Hight) is the gold standard right now,” Tasca said. “I mean, anyone says different, they haven't looked at the points lately. I don't think I beat the guy in three years, right? So mentally, in Norwick and Denver, he had the upper hand. I mean, his car was just running a little better than our car. And we gave it the best shot we got. Out here, we had the upper hand, and he knew it. They had to come get us. I think, as a driver, that puts you in a real nice spot. John Force, John Force is superhuman. Let's just put that on record, okay? He's 73 years old. If the average person knew what we went through in a weekend mentally, physically, how difficult it is to get through a weekend in one of these cars with full layer of firesuits on, strapped in so you hardly can't breathe. And you look over next to you and the guy's 73 years old, I think, maybe 74. He's superhuman, okay?

“The guy is a legend. I wouldn't be here sitting at this stage if it weren’t for John Force. There's nobody out here I want to race more than John. I mean, how often do you get any athlete in any sport gets to go toe to toe with the greatest of all time in maybe the next thousand years? I know that he brings his ‘A’ game. I knew he was going to drop the top bulb. I mean, eventually I just got to... John and I are going to have a sidebar. And say, ‘John, listen, if we ever race each other again in the finals, don't put the top bulb down, because I already know you're going to put the top bulb down.’ But he taught me a lot of this. And he said, ‘Tasca, I created my own assassin.’”