It’s been a long time coming, but under the lights today at the O’Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway Funny Car veteran, Tim Wilkerson showed the talent he’s known for. Wilkerson tuned his Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevrolet Impala SS to an impressive 4.819 at 321.42 mph, taking the No. 1 qualifying position.
Wilkerson struggled in the day’s first session, dropping cylinders and only running 5.797. He was able to better assess the track for the evening run and made a nearly flawless run.
“We greatly underestimated the track for the first session, ” explained Wilkerson. “We went out there with the intention of running a high 90 and the track got a hold of our car and explained to us that we were dumber than we thought. So, we tuned it up a little bit for the night run. I was looking for an 80-flat, but I cost us a little in my staging.
“We’re pretty happy with that run. I really can’t say enough about the crew and the car. That Impala is really working well, and we’ve been working hard on getting everything to work. Before when we were getting parts, we would make assumptions about what they were, but now we’re leaning how to check and evaluate them. And that is helping us tremendously. But I don’t want to beat my chest too hard, because we’ve got four runs we have to make on Sunday. “
Wilkerson has had eight No. 1 qualifiers in his Funny Car career, but he last time he enjoyed the coveted achievement was in 2004.
“We’ve been waiting for this for a long time, ” said Wilkerson. “We’ve been trying to bring back our performance from a few years ago and I think it’s coming around. I want to thank all our sponsors for sticking with us through these rough times. I especially want to thank Dick Levi and all our great friends at Levi, Ray & Shoup for their unwavering support. ”
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