Tim Wilkerson marched to his sixth win of the season and grew his points lead in the Countdown to 1 today at the O’Reilly Mid-South Nationals at Memphis Motorsports Park. The Springfield, Ill. Funny Car favorite took his Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevy Impala SS to his first ever back-to-back win and surpassed his career win total.
Wilkerson may not have had the quickest car out there, as a matter of fact he didn’t have lane choice until the final-round, but that didn’t stop him as he took out each of his competitors. In the first-round, he took out Melanie Troxel. Then he had the daunting task of going against three Team Force cars and for the second time this year the talented Wilk stopped “The Force.” First he took out the top dog, John Force, and then in the semi’s he took out Robert Hight and in the finals, he went up against the No. 1 qualifier, Ashley Force. In a close side-by-side race, Wilkerson got the win with a 4.166 at 298.47 mph against Ashley’s 4.183 at 294.18 mph.
“It’s a happy day and a pretty spectacular weekend for our whole team,” expressed a jubilant Wilkerson. “Things are falling in place for us. There are no easy draws out here. If you can qualify, you can win. I won from the back half. We were lucky enough to get by the three Force cars and that was a tremendous opportunity for us to build on our points. And when we beat the best out there with John, Ashley and Robert, you know I love those guys. And to be as fast as them on any given day really makes me feel like my team and I did a terrific job. We’ve been going out there and trying our best and race like every race was the last race of the season, last race of our life. We’ve been doing that all year. And every time I back up from the burnout, I’m telling myself that if I want to win the Championship, this is where it starts. So, that’s what we’re up to.
“We struggled a little this weekend and turned it around when we had to. We had some lucky breaks the first two rounds and then as soon as we needed to perform the car came around, and I did okay. The car ran good and the guys did a terrific job. We just have to keep our fingers crossed that we can keep ahead of them. I think we can do it, but it’s going to be tough. I plan on winning at least another one of these. We’re not giving up. We’re going to keep on top of them and hopefully we can just keep them all down where they belong. We’ve got three races left and we’re going to put our noses to the grindstone and we’re going to make them mad.”
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