Photos by Ron Lewis
Two weeks ago, Bob Tasca took to the airwaves of the NHRA Gatornationals broadcast to point out to the motorsports community that IndyCar was not the fastest racing on the planet. Friday night at the NHRA Arizona Nationals, he also reminded the Funny Car contingent that he’s the man capable of running speeds much faster than the IndyCar contingent, as well as his fellow competitors.
Tasca was also quick, covering the Firebird Motorsports Park 1,000-foot course in 3.863 seconds at 333.82 miles per hour. If the run holds through Saturday’s final rounds, it will be his 19th No. 1 qualifier of his career.
Joining Tasca atop Friday’s provisional fields were Doug Kalitta (Top Fuel) and Matt Hartford (Pro Stock).
Tasca tapped into the same energy of the past few years where his Motorcraft Ford thrived equally on hot and cool racetracks.
“What I love about what we did today is we did it on a hot track, and we did it on a cool track,” Tasca said. “You are going to see hot tracks for the rest of the weekend, so I’m pretty confident I’ll see you guys [in the media] tomorrow night. But the truth is we needed that first run was more important than the second run.
“Todd [Okuhara] and Aaron [Brooks] really worked hard over the winter making some changes to this race car, trying to get more consistency. Clearly, it’s showed in testing. Gainesville was kind of an anomaly, man. We had some tough weather, tough track conditions in that second round. Unfortunately, we had … it was an assembly issue with the clutch. We were dead at hello there. But the good news is we got a car that is going up and down, hot and cool tracks.”
Right on Tasca’s heels are the defending NHRA Funny Car champion Austin Prock [3.883] and Jack Beckman [3.895]. Jim Campbell sits on the Funny Car bubble with a 5.058, 183.52.
Kalitta, whose last No. 1 qualifying effort came last season at the NHRA Sonoma Nationals, went to the top after Friday’s two sessions with his run of 3.688 at 330 miles an hour. If that holds, it will be Kalitta’s 59th low-qualifier effort.
“I was pretty happy with that at the end,” Kalitta said. “I have to say, though, they’ve really done a nice job with this facility. The track is nice and smooth. It seems real nice. So hats off to the guys and everybody involved there.”
Kalitta was the only nitro racer in the 3.60s on the first day, finishing ahead of Brittany Force’s 3.705 and teammate Shawn Langdon’s 3.706, 331.85.
Hartford made a quantum leap in the Q2 session of Pro Stock, jumping from No. 10 into the lead with a 6.509 at 208 miles an hour, setting him up provisionally for his first No. 1 of the year and the fifth in his career.
“This is our home track,” Hartford said. “It’s Total Seal country, and to be able to do that in front of friends and family, and then all the people from Total Seal is just incredible. We’re going to have a lot of people here tomorrow who represent about 175 of our closest friends, and they are all going to want to know how we did last night. So it’s going to be nice to say that we’re No. 1 going into tomorrow, and the weather conditions look similar. Not as good, but you never know. But tonight was just the best conditions you can get for Phoenix that we’ve seen in probably a decade.”
Hartford sits atop a logjam of KB Titan cars with defending NHRA Pro Stock champion No. 2 with a 6.512, Cory Reed 6.516, and Gainesville winner Dallas Glenn at No. 4 with a 6.520.
Brandon Foster sets on the bubble with a 6.590, 206.48 lap.
Qualifying continues at 11:30 a.m. PDT on Saturday at the NHRA Arizona Nationals at Firebird Motorsports Park.
