 |
| Bob Tasca III’s Nitro Funny Car can top speeds of 330 mph. |
Imagine being strapped to a bullet.
That’s how Bob Tasca III describes his experiences behind the wheel in Nitro Funny Car competitions.
“It’s blinding speed,” Mr. Tasca said. “You are driving for the ride, and you have to keep the car straight, in the center of the grooves and stop it at the other end.”
All this happens in seconds – and at speeds topping 330 mph.
AAA Southern New England is sponsoring Mr. Tasca as he shifts into higher speeds in the Nitro Funny Car class this year, after competing in the Top Alcohol Funny Car class the last two years.
Instead of one car with four engines, he has three cars and 15 engines – and he needs them all to make runs like the 4.96 second, 317 mph sprint that earned his National Hot Rod Association license upgrade, allowing him to race in the Nitro class.
“It’s like NASCAR versus the Busch Series,” he said.
There’s no denying the thrill of the race: In his first two years competing, Mr. Tasca completed about 135 quarter-mile runs, averaging about 5.5 seconds each.
In 1954, a team of timers from Parade magazine found at a game between the Milwaukee Braves and the Brooklyn Dodgers that it took about 12 seconds each time a batter stepped out of the box and 2- to 5.5 seconds for each sweep the home umpire made of home plate.
“You have no time to think,” Mr. Tasca said. “A lot of what we do is pure instinct – we feel it. Decisions and adjustments are made in the car by the driver without any time to process thoughts. You either have it, or you don’t.”
In this sport, 0.01 seconds is the difference between making and not making the run.
And with more than 12 minutes and 37 seconds behind the wheel to his credit after two years and 100,000 highway miles in the circuit, Mr. Tasca is a veteran in making the almost-subconscious decisions needed to win.
As he speaks, he reaches into the top drawer of his desk in his upstairs office at Tasca Ford in Cranston and pulls out a slip that resembles a fast-food receipt.
It’s the time slip with run data outlining how fast the car went in different increments in the Gainesville, Fla., race where he set a world record with a 5.451-second run – the quickest time in the history of the Top Alcohol Funny Car competition.
Now, he’s set his sights on breaking the Nitro world record of 4.63 seconds. His average pass in the Nitro class is 4.7 or 4.8 seconds, he said.
He described the sensation of leaping off the starting line and accelerating from 0 to 100 mph in 0.8 seconds – 265 mph in just more than 3 seconds – as an explosion.
But now that he’s finishing the quarter-mile races in 4.65 seconds at 330 mph, he’s traveling on the edge of eternity – and of his seat.
“Now, it feels like you better pay real close attention to where the finish line is; otherwise, you won’t have enough track to stop it,” he said. “It’s intense. We’ll go half a football field in 0.5 seconds. For me, that is really the thrill as a driver.”
Once he guns the engine, he experiences the g-force – a measure of acceleration – swing about 10 g’s from acceleration to his top speeds to deceleration to a cold stop. Five g’s are equivalent to five times more than the force of gravity.
“To move your hands under 5 g’s takes effort – never mind thinking and shifting and reacting – and, at the same time, you have to be perfect,” Mr. Tasca said. “Things slow down for a driver, I’ll get out of the race car, and it will take me a few minutes to process what just happened.”
Ultimately, the car will tell the story.
“You can’t tell 5.2 seconds from 5.6 seconds by watching the race,” his retired Crew Chief Ralph Poirier said, noting that computer data helps evaluate what was good and bad about the race.
And then, it’s back to the starting line.
Since Mr. Tasca has entered the Nitro class for his rookie year, he has completed 36 runs with an average pass of 4.8 seconds and total driving experience of 2.5 minutes.
“The more seat time I get, the more things will slow down,” Mr. Tasca said. “This is the fastest object on the planet – there’s nothing faster on wheels than these cars. No one can exceed this speed. There’s only a handful of people in the world who have ever done it – not a lot of people you can talk to for advice.” 
Back to Index |
