Charlotte New Hot Spot For Drag Racing

Charlotte area draws drag racing notice

By David Scott - dscott@charlotteobserver.com

Friday, Mar. 26, 2010

After starting his team during the 2008 season, Rhode Island-based driver Bob Tasca decided to set up shop in Concord, just a few miles from Charlotte.

But there are other, more subtle, ways the sport is manifesting itself within the area. Here's one:

If other NHRA teams - or those who have yet to be formed - follow the lead of Funny Car driver Bob Tasca, more drag racers might start basing their operations in Charlotte rather than in Indianapolis, where many top teams are located now.

That's what Tasca did. After starting his team during 2008, the Rhode Island-based driver decided to set up shop in Concord, just a few miles from zMax.

It was a move that made lots of sense.

"We're near a track, so that saves us hotel costs for two races a year," said Tasca. "A lot of our crew lives in Charlotte, so that's making their families happy.

"If you're already in Indy - which offers most of what Charlotte can in motorsports resources - there's no real reason to move to Charlotte.

"But if you starting up a team and don't have a base yet, Charlotte's a really viable option."

Many of the NHRA's nitro teams - Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars - are based in Indianapolis, which has a drag strip and a wealth of motorsports resources.

But when the Concord strip was built during 2008, the Charlotte area became a logical competitor to Indianapolis as a drag-racing hub.

"With all the resources in Charlotte, there's a lot of stuff in common for us," said Tasca, who won his first Funny Car race last season at Gainesville, Fla. "Anodizing (a process that adds coating on aluminum), fabricators... there's a lot of technology here that we can patch with what we do. Even stuff you might not think about, like awnings, finding trailers to transport the car.

"And there's just a lot of brainpower we can tap into."

The only other NHRA nitro team working near Charlotte is Doug Herbert, whose team is based in Lincoln County.

Chris Cunningham, Tasca's crew chief, has lived in Charlotte for 20 years. When Tasca hired him, he asked Cunningham where he thought the crew should be based. Cunningham recommended Concord.

"I told him I thought the Charlotte area would work well," Cunningham said. "He had enough faith in me to go on my recommendation. It's working well."

Tasca's team worked out of NASCAR driver Ken Schrader's shop while its own building was being built in Concord. In March 2009, the Tasca team moved in.

Tasca still lives in Rhode Island, but obviously he travels often to Charlotte. There's another advantage to Charlotte over Indianapolis.

"It's a direct flight," he said.