CONCORD, N.C. — Bob Tasca III’s second qualifying pass on Friday at zMAX Dragway has been disqualified by NHRA due to an issue with the team’s intake manifolds.
His only qualifying run for this weekend’s Four-Wide Nationals at the North Carolina facility is now from Friday afternoon — 7.806 seconds at 83.50 mph — when he smoked the tires.
“We’ve had better mornings,” Tasca said in his Saturday appearance on the NHRA Insider podcast. “This morning I spent with NHRA tech and, not to derail the show, but we’re not quite sure if we’re going to race today. We may pack up and leave.”
He went on to unravel the “harsh reality” of the developing situation.
“We put an A.J. (Alan Johnson) manifold on our car. First time we’ve ever done that at a race,” Tasca said. “We flow our manifolds and the reason why we flow them, there is no two manifolds the same. They’re different. And quite frankly, A.J.’s is one of the best that we’ve flowed for their consistency.”
The issue NHRA has taken up with Tasca appears to be related to the color of the manifold and not the actual dimensions. The situation would be a little more black-and-white if the problem arose with the dimensions, which would give the Funny Car racer a competitive advantage and thus be blatant cheating.
But according to last week’s four-wide winner at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, that’s not the case here.
“Alan Johnson, who makes the manifold, met this morning with me and says there are no dimension change with the manifold,” a frustrated Tasca said. “Color is not a performance advantage, but in the NHRA rulebook, any modification is deemed not allowable.”
Since the season opener at Florida’s Gainesville Raceway, Tasca shared there have been rumors circling the pits that his Tasca Racing operation was running illegal manifolds.
For that reason, the team handed over the manifolds to NHRA for inspection early in the season to ensure there would be “no drama” if and when they started running them. According to Tasca, the sanctioning body then returned the manifolds without any remark or restriction.
“They did not tell me I could not run them,” Tasca said. “But today they tell me, ‘Well, we gave them back to you, but we didn’t tell you they were legal.’”
Along with his Friday runs being disqualified, the most pressing issue is that every manifold in his hauler has been flowed — leaving him without a “legal” part to utilize this weekend.
“So, at this point, I don’t know if we’ll run this weekend,” Tasca said. “To change the color, there’s no dimensional change, which means there’s no performance advantage…if they (DNQ) me, I’m going to pack myself up and leave and we’ll have to regroup for the next race.”
This is the second tech issue Tasca Racing has experienced in recent times, as the team’s qualifying runs at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last October were also disqualified.
NHRA made a statement regarding the disqualification on Saturday afternoon, writing, “NHRA has announced the disqualification of Bob Tasca III’s run during the second round of Funny Car qualifications at the Charlotte NHRA 4-Wide Nationals, on Friday, April 26…The intake manifold is not allowed to be altered in any form from its original, accepted state.
“Tasca’s intake manifold was found to have been media blasted and this violation is considered a technical infraction. Additional penalty may apply after further evaluation. Tasca’s ET from qualifying session one stands. He is currently No. 16.”
Bob Tasca released an update on his race status via X, formerly know as Twitter, at 12:48 p.m. (ET).
Thanks to @SteveTorrence and his family; Bob Tasca III will be racing in the @MissionFoodsUS #2Fast2Tasty Challenge during Q3.
— Bob Tasca III (@Tasca3) April 27, 2024