NHRA Funny Car Pilot Bob Tasca Obsessed with 340 MPH Plateau

• Setups for a speed-record run attempt and top qualifying spot or victory are decidedly different, Tasca says.

• With two more regular-season races and the six-race Countdown approaching, Tasca is torn between concentrating on how to clinch the championship and pursuing speed record.

• Tasca knows he has quicker and faster equipment in his hauler, but he wants to focus on the more consistent car right now.

Funny Car title contender Bob Tasca III is a little peeved that the dazzling 341.68-mph pass he posted Feb. 9 in an exhibition drag race at Bradenton, Fla., is a feat he needs to repeat at an NHRA Mission Foods Series national event to be considered an official record.

It’s the fastest speed anyone ever has clocked on the dragstrip, faster even than the Top Fuel class’ best mark (338.94 mph by Brittany Force in November 2022 at Pomona, Calif.). But because it didn’t happen ant an NHRA-sanctioned event, the sport’s premier body doesn’t recognize it.

So, as Lucas Oil Nationals open this weekend at Minnesota’s Brainerd International Raceway, Tasca continues his quest to claim the glorious distinction once and for all, by everybody’s standards. But in doing so, he’s facing a pivotal choice. Which does he want, his name in the record book as the first racer in all of drag racing officially to make a 340-mph pass or his first Funny Car championship, the one he promised the Ford Motor Company he would deliver if it remained engaged in the sport?

It appears he can’t have both.

“We don't [tune] the car to run 340 [mph] to run low E.T. [elapsed time]. It's a different setup on how we run the car. To run the speed, it's a little different setup, and it does hurt the E.T. a little bit,” Tasca said.

And as four-time Funny Car champion Matt Hagan said, “A lot of people may not understand that E.T. is everything in drag racing,” not speed.

But that’s what has consumed Tasca for nearly the entire 14-race “regular season.” He said, “I want to do it at an NHRA race. We've already are the first to do it, but it means a lot to do an NHRA race because it goes down in their record books, and we got a car that can do it. We'll do it. It's just a matter of when. It's going to be a thrilling run for the fans to see. I hope I'm the first to do it. You have to try to run 340 miles per hour if no one's done it in the history of the world but us. This car has already done it, so this is a semantic thing for us to do it in NHRA racing.

“As you get into the fall races,” Tasca said, “the conditions are going to just cater to the 340, and this car will run 340 this year. I made a commitment a few races back, so I don't want to let the fans down. But it all depends what the conditions are.

“I can tell you one thing: There will not be a time that we won't try to do it if we think we can do it,” he said. “You need perfect conditions. You need a perfect setup. The driver has to drive the perfect line. Any wasted energy left or right could upset the car, smoke the tires. So as a driver, my No. 1 priority is not just running 340—it's keep the car in the center of the groove. The reason why no one's ever done it but us in a hundred years of racing is because it's not easy to do.”

Naturally, he’ll go for that 340 mph this weekend if conditions are ripe. “It all depends on what the weather's going to be up there,” he said. “I've been in Brainerd where I had to wear a jacket, and I've been in Brainerd where it was sweltering hot.”

Registering another 340-mph run has been top of mind for the entire season so far. He hasn’t reached his goal, but he has won three times in four final-round appearances, compiled a 21-9 record, and is second to leader Austin Prock in the standings. Only this race and the Labor Day weekend U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis remain before the NHRA adjusts the points to bunch the championship contenders closer together.

And that disrupts Tasca’s strategy.

"No doubt the stuff we have in the trailer is quicker and faster than what we have now," Tasca says. "It's absolutely extraordinary, the difference in set-up between the two, as far as how much we have to pull it back and it still runs faster than this set-up. But I want to win a championship.

"And it's about getting ready to win a championship and having a set-up that can go down a hot track [and a] cold track. That's what we have right now with this tune-up. We probably will test at Brainerd our different combination, and then we'll definitely put it back on next year in the test session. But I just want to have the best package to win this championship.”