Tim Wilkerson was part of the grand majority in Q1, here at Route 66 Raceway, when he spun the tires and limped his car across the finish line in the middle of a hot and sunny afternoon.
As the sun began to set, just before Q2, the track came around as the session went along, but the “home run session” people had been hoping for ended up being more of a “doubles in the gap session” instead.
Wilk powered across the stripe with a 4.182, while Mike Neff paced the field with a 4.100. Wilk’s car might have gone a little quicker had it finished the run with all 16 spark plugs.
“It spit a spark plug out down there just short of the finish line, which is a real novel way to drop a cylinder,” Wilkerson said.
“It was still a little too soft, so it’s not like we threw a 4.09 away, but it might have run 4.16 or maybe 4.15 had it not done that. It was good to get down there, and tomorrow will be better. We have the same schedule, running in them middle of the afternoon before we come back for a session under the lights, but tomorrow the Top Fuel cars go before us so it will be much better out there.”
“Today wasn’t quite good enough for anyone to hit one out of the park, but they’ll be swinging their big bats tomorrow night and we’ll have to try to stay with them.”
| 
|