The oddities, vagaries, and overall strangeness of drag racing are the stuff of legend, and every driver has that one day or single round that simply confounds everyone. In that vein, Tim Wilkerson went through a Sunday in Houston he’ll never forget. Running out of the No. 4 spot on the grid, which was his highest placement on the young season, Wilkerson pedaled his way to a smoky 4.437 in round one, but that was not only good enough for the win over Jeff Arend, it actually earned him lane choice in round two, over Jack Beckman. Not much more than an hour later, racing against Beckman, Wilkerson posted the quickest E. T. of the round, sprinting to a sterling 4.148 against Beckman’s 4.172, and yet he lost.
As tough as any hole-shot loss is, on the driver and the team, one that comes on a lap that paced the class is perhaps more difficult, but also just as encouraging since it clearly shows how well the car is running. Taking that positive performance to the next race, where the hole-shot can be forgotten, is the prime objective and the silver lining.
“It’s not my first loss like that, and I don’t think it will be my last, but to see the low E. T. of the round get away, when so many other cars are out there smoking the tires and limping through with the sort of win we got in round one, well that’s pretty tough, ” Wilkerson said. “My guys work so hard, and we absolutely nailed the tune-up for that lap, but we didn’t get the win and that’s really what we’re here for. We’ll just have to get the next one.”
Wilkerson got to that point thanks to a strong qualifying effort, posting his season-low 4.086 during the final qualifying session, after having run a 4.512 during Friday’s only lap, and a 4.176 on Saturday’s initial pass. He was never out of the top half after any session, and the No. 4 placement was his best of the year. His opponent in round one was Arend, and Wilkerson knew he’d have to be on his game after watching the Top Fuel session, which was full of tire smoke.
“Top Fuel had a hard time, plus they had a big oil-down that took a long time to clean up, so the track wasn’t exactly getting any better,” Wilkerson said. “Earlier in the morning, when they came to us and asked what pair we wanted to be, the first pair was still available, so I took that. I’d rather go up there and trust our judgement, rather than have time to change our minds, and when you go first it seems to really level the playing field, because even teams with multiple cars can’t share any info after watching a few. After Top Fuel, though, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t ready to pedal the car. It didn’t look too good out there.
“It left nice, in round one, and was running pretty good to about half-track, but then we ended up in a pedaling duel with Jeff, and usually those are pretty one-sided deals. Let me tell you, this one wasn’t. It was as close as most full side-by-side passes, and we felt good that we got the win light by a nose. A couple of pairs later, we even found out we had lane choice again, so that was even better. I felt pretty good about the adjustments we made, and this time I was just as sure it wouldn’t smoke the tires as I was that it would the round before. I just didn’t factor in the reaction time, I guess.”
At the tree, against Beckman, Wilkerson carded a. 102 light to Beckman’s. 073. At the stripe, it was Wilkerson’s 4.148 outpacing Beckman’s 4.172, but by adding the two sets of numbers together, the margin of victory (or for Wilk, the margin of loss) becomes apparent. Beckman took the round by 5-thousandths of a second. It was razor-close, but there was no Tiparillo.
Over the course of any season, Tim Wilkerson is surely going to win far more of those kinds of races than he’ll lose. Over the course of any season, he’ll continue to out-pedal and outpace a wide variety of opponents. On this day in the Houston sun, he ran low E. T. of the round and lost. It’s a very strange sport, sometimes, but the raw numbers indicate an LRS Shelby Mustang that is finding its stride, and the good news for Wilkerson and his group is that they only have a few days to wait before they get to do it again. The NHRA reconvenes in Las Vegas in a week.
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