Tim Wilkerson enjoyed his best weekend of the year at Bristol Dragway for the O’Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals. The Springfield, Ill. Funny Car favorite captured his first No. 1 qualifying position and first semifinal round appearance of the season in his beautiful Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevrolet Impala SS.
In racing action today Wilkerson faced tough competition. The first-round was a close side-by-side race but Wilkerson out ran Del Worsham with a 4.935 against Worsham’s 4.960. In the second round, Wilkerson easily took out Gary Scelzi even with a slowing 5.037. In the semi’s Wilkerson lost lane choice as he faced John Force. It was a close race until Wilkerson saw Force pull ahead of him. Wilk knew he didn’t have a chance and clicked it off early.
“This weekend turned out pretty good, ” said Wilkerson, “and that’s what we’ve been trying to do. The last couple of races the car has been running better. Yesterday we muffed it up a couple of times. We had a header come loose and that ruined that run, and then we had an oil leak. So, on our run against Del today, I left it just as it was for the fourth qualifying run. I thought it would go 4.90 yesterday and today it went 4.93, so we were right on target. And that’s what we were trying to run against Force. If it hadn’t put a hole out two seconds into the run, it would have been pretty close to that. But that’s the kind of thing that happens in this weather. We had a chance against Force, but the weather just kept getting hotter and hotter, and we couldn’t keep ahead of it. I saw Jim Head smoke the tires in front of me, so I backed it off a little. I probably shouldn’t have done that. And then I shut it off early because I saw Force ahead of me. But that’s okay. We’re trying not to make mistakes. That’s a better approach than smoking the tires. And nobody made it down that left lane in Funny Car or dragster but us and that makes us feel good.
“The car is running better. It’s acting okay and each week it gets better and better. Our goal is to go two rounds each weekend and get ahead of everybody else in points. So, now we just have to see how it goes the rest of the swing. ”
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