Tim Wilkerson came to Maple Grove Raceway this morning wondering if the weather would even allow his Levi, Ray & Shoup car to run. When the predicted rain never materialized (a much more pleasant aberration than when predicted dry conditions unexpectedly turn wet) Wilk instantly smoked the tires on his first attempt, due to parts breakage in the clutch department. At that point, he focused on Q4 and again had to hope that the threatening skies would not cut qualifying short.
With the track remaining dry and cool, on a chilly overcast day, Wilk took a swing for the fences Q4 and he solidly connected. His 4.027 obliterated his previous career best (4.052) and moved him up the ladder from the 9th spot into the No. 4 position. He will face Tony Pedregon in round one on Sunday.
“We were trying to run that good on the first one, but we broke a clutch lever and it never had a chance to go two feet,” Wilk said.
“We just put it back together and went up there feeling like we had nothing to lose, so let’s go for it. We’re 10th in the Countdown, we were solidly in the show here, so why not take a shot at a good one? Let me tell you, it was pulling hard right through the lights. That’s exactly what we were after.
“My guys were pretty pumped up, and they should be. You can’t have anything wrong on the race car if you want to run 4.02, and it was flawless. The best thing is that it got us two bonus points, and it showed we’ve made some big strides in being able to run with the big dogs on a huge day like this. Like I’ve said before, we don’t curl up and hide when it’s this good out, but a lot of the time we haven’t been able to really put a good one together when it’s as cool and tight as this was. We got it right this time, and now comes the important part. We have to turn this into round wins on Sunday.”
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