Today was a beautiful day for racing at the Virginia NHRA Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park and the fans enjoyed some of the most exciting qualifying there has been in a long time. Funny Car points leader, Tim Wilkerson made two nice runs in his beautiful Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevy Impala SS, but was only happy with one of them.
In the early session he ran 4.156 at 297.09 mph, which put him in the No. 12 position. This was the run that disturbed him, but it wasn’t his awesome hot rod that caused him concern, instead it was his role as crew-chief.
“I don’t know what my deal is lately on our first runs,” explained Wilkerson. “I go out there thinking all we have to do is go down the track. Our run was decent but the track was great and as you can see by all the good runs; we could have done much better. I should have been more aggressive.”
Cooling temperatures for the second round contributed to a record setting qualifying session, and Wilk was much happier with his performance this time around. He made his career quickest run under the 1000 foot format, an impressive 4.079 at 302.48 mph. At the time, it catapulted Wilkerson to the No. 2 spot, but by the time all the cars ran, he ended up ninth.
“See what happens when I forget about being conservative,” Wilkerson said. “We should have started with this run, but we’ll take it whenever we get it. I didn’t think it would stay No. 2, but I would have liked to stay in the top half of the field. I think we have more in it and I’m optimistic that we can move up tomorrow.”
| 
|