Boy, it’s been an exciting week for us here in Vegas. I actually flew in on Wednesday because the annual Ford dealer meetings were being held on Wednesday and Thursday. It was neat to meet with dealers from all across the country. We also meet with the Ford leadership team, they shared the future product and marketing plans of Ford with us. It was a great meeting and we are all excited about the future of Ford Motor Company.

Once Thursday night rolled around, my team and I headed over the to grand opening of the Shelby Corner Café at the racetrack. Carroll Shelby and my grandfather have been friends for many years, and we are the only Shelby-branded Mustang racing in our class. I was there with Robert Hight, Carroll and Don Prudhomme signing autographs for fans, and then John Force and his family also came out. It was a great event for Shelby and for the fans.

On Friday, it was back to business and racing for us. After a long week full of activities, it was nice to get back to the track and get ready for the race. Going down the track the first time on Friday, it was really hot out there. We ended up being the first car that made it down the track, and we were in the No. 1 qualifier position for a while. After everyone in the field ran, we ended up third after the first run with a 5.00. We were really excited about that run because for Sunday’s race, it’s supposed to be very warm, so we were really confident about putting together a good run in the heat. For us, third was really a great accomplishment for our team. Another cool thing on Friday was that we had a lot of people from Ford out here to visit with all of the Mustang teams. Jim Farley, who is the group vice president of marketing and communications for Ford Motor Company, came out to his first NHRA race since joining Ford earlier this year. He got to hang out with our team and the Force camp and help us introduce the new Drive One campaign to the fans that Ford just launched. We’ve got some new stickers on our car this weekend to go along with the campaign launch, and it’s really neat to help reach the fans with Ford’s new messaging. If you haven’t driven a Ford lately you really need to Drive One!

Going out for the second run on Friday, the track had cooled down quite a bit. Our goal for that run was to put down a 4.85 run, and get into that top position. We were really close at getting there because I ran a 4.86, which put us back up into the No. 1 qualifier position. When I got out of my car, I was so excited. To put together two runs, with the second being an improvement over the first, was really awesome. It was really neat to the track announcer’s say the name Tasca and No. 1 in the same sentence over the loud speaker. While confident in our run, there were still some really stellar teams left to go down the track. It came down to the last two drivers of the session, and Tim Wilkerson had just a little bit more than we did, and was able to pull out a 4.85, No. 1 qualifying position run. It was a great day for us and I really feel like our team is on the right track.

Right now our team is getting ready for the second run of today, and fourth of the weekend. Our first run this afternoon we used basically as a testing run to get some data for the rest of the weekend.

It’s great weather out here in Vegas and a lot of my family is here, so I’m really excited that our team is doing this well and we’re having a great time!