BRAINERD, Minn. – Brittany Force and Bob Tasca III emerged as the top qualifiers in Top Fuel and Funny Car at the 38th annual Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd Int’l Raceway on Saturday afternoon.
A lot changed at Brainerd Int’l Raceway between Friday and Saturday, including the weather, which went from hot and humid to cool and dry and as a result, the top qualifying positions changed hands multiple times. No one benefitted more from the change than Force and Tasca, who locked themselves into the top spots in Top Fuel and Funny Car with solid qualifying runs.
Force jumped to the top of the chart with her Monster Energy entry with a 3.675-second pass at a stout 334.98 mph mph. Force’s run represented a dramatic improvement over Friday’s 3.813-second pass and a tire-smoking shut off on Saturday afternoon.
“Coming out of a win in Topeka with my dad was pretty incredible for all of John Force Racing,” said Force. “We’ve been chasing this first win all season long. We’ve gotten those No. 1 hats but we just can’t seem to figure it out on race day but we got it done last weekend and our goal is to repeat that here in Brainerd.”
Steve Torrence qualified second in his CAPCO Contractors Dragster, with Mike Salinas qualifying third after leading qualifying on Friday.
Tasca has never been to a final in Brainerd, but that could easily change Sunday as he heads into eliminations with the quickest car in the stacked Funny Car field after a 3.870-second pass at 334.15 mph in his Mike Neff-tuned Motorcraft/Quicklane Ford Mustang. He’ll have a bye run to open eliminations.
“It’s great to be back in Brainerd with all these Ford fans. I’ve been signing autographs all day,” said Tasca. “Mike [Neff] and John [Shafer] have been a little frustrated these last couple of races. We really haven’t caught our stride like we did in the early part of the season. They’ve been working on a little different set-up and we found it last night. A little disappointed this morning. We didn’t’ have the early numbers they wanted.”
Cruz Pedregon qualified second in his Snap-on Dodge, with Tim Wilkerson taking second in the Levi, Ray & Shoup Mustang.