A determined Wilkerson plans to put a happy ending on his Cinderella story
<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/t_wilkerson.jpg" alt="t_wilkerson" align="left"borders="0"/>
LAS VEGAS, Prerace: Springfield, Ill. favorite, Tim Wilkerson has been on the top of the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Funny Car points for more races than not. And going into the two remaining races in the Countdown to 1 in the lead, is a highlight in Wilkerson’s phenomenal storybook year.
Wilkerson is a so-called independent; a single car team with an average budget battling a world of multi-car teams with mega dollar budgets. He works with less crew members than most and the most astonishing feature is that Wilkerson owns the team, drives the 8,000 horsepower monster machine and is his own crew-chief. He is the only full-time Funny Car in NHRA POWERade Drag Racing arena that operates this way and yet every race weekend, Wilk and his talented team take on the giants in the Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevrolet Impala SS and still they keep coming out on top. And Wilkerson plans to keep his momentum going through to the very end.
“We’re trying not to watch what the rest of the teams in the Top 10 are doing,” said Wilkerson. “But it's hard not to worry about them. We know they’re back there and are breathing down our necks. We just can’t let them affect our decision making. We need to try to just do our own deal and whatever happens - happens. That's what we've done all year. So, we're going to run as hard as we can. I know we haven't qualified as well as we had been the last four or five races. But if you look at the qualifying shows, like the last race, we ran a 4.079. There were five 4.07’s and we were the slowest. We really didn't qualify that bad. It just didn't look that good on the piece of paper.
“It's been an exciting year. There's no doubt about that. And now we're just going to keep our nose down and hopefully we can get some help from some of the other cars, by taking one of those other hot dogs out before we have to get to them. As my grandma used to say, ‘the proof of the pudding is in the tasting’. That's our deal. We have a good car. I think we've proven that through the year. Not to beat our chests, I don't do a lot of that. You know me; I'm not a guy who beats my chest about how good we are. I do have a terrific group of guys. They've made my car good. They've allowed me to make runs with me being the guy that has to make a mistake. And that's how we've won races this year. We've just had an extremely good, consistent car. As I've said in the past, my driving is probably the weakest part of it. But we're proud to be in the position we're in.”
There was a welcomed few weeks off before the team headed off to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the ACDELCO Las Vegas Nationals, quickly followed by the season finale at the Auto Club Raceway at Pomona. And even though Wilkerson would rather be racing, he took advantage of the time to get his men and his machine ready for the battle ahead.
“We went over everything with everybody during our time off,” explained Wilkerson, “and made sure there's no mistakes, that everything is happening correctly and that the car is prepared as well as it can. We got nicked (15 points) for an oil-down deal at Memphis. We need to make sure that little stuff like that don't bite us in the butt so we can continue on our path and hopefully we can be the champion when we’re finished.
“We did need a little bit of time to get our junk back in the pile, there's no doubt about that. We've been fixing cylinder heads the last couple weeks and trying to get enough motors in the trailer to go to the next couple races so we'll have enough to finish fighting this battle to the end. And I gave the guys a little bit of time off. They need a breather every once in a while. I know they need to take care of their home life. Now as for me, I'd go racing every day if I could. As a matter of fact my kid, Daniel and I went bracket racing every weekend. We haven't stopped racing; we just stopped racing the Funny Car.”
Wilkerson has captured six wins so far this season, one more than he had in the previous 12 years of his Funny Car career. The admitted Cinderella season makes Wilkerson happy, happy for everyone supporting him in his stunning success.
“It has been a Cinderella season and no matter what happens I will be so happy for my guys and my sponsors,” said Wilkerson. “You know, everyone said we wouldn’t hold on to the lead in the Countdown to 1 because we couldn’t handle the pressure. Well, little did they know that made us more determined. The pressure isn’t getting in our way. Things have just worked for us all year, while some of the others have faltered. That's just the way it's going to be. Sometimes you're the bug and sometimes you're the windshield.
“I like to think that we were this good a team before; we just didn't quite have the opportunities and resources. Dick Levi stepped up and gave us more money than we ever had this year. And our alliance with Don Prudhomme has given us the opportunity to use some equipment we really didn't have available to us before. I just think it shows you with the right amount of money, the right amount of perseverance, any team out there can do it. Fortunately this year we get to be the team going into the last couple races ahead of the pack.”
<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/t_wilkerson.jpg" alt="t_wilkerson" align="left"borders="0"/>
LAS VEGAS, Prerace: Springfield, Ill. favorite, Tim Wilkerson has been on the top of the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Funny Car points for more races than not. And going into the two remaining races in the Countdown to 1 in the lead, is a highlight in Wilkerson’s phenomenal storybook year.
Wilkerson is a so-called independent; a single car team with an average budget battling a world of multi-car teams with mega dollar budgets. He works with less crew members than most and the most astonishing feature is that Wilkerson owns the team, drives the 8,000 horsepower monster machine and is his own crew-chief. He is the only full-time Funny Car in NHRA POWERade Drag Racing arena that operates this way and yet every race weekend, Wilk and his talented team take on the giants in the Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevrolet Impala SS and still they keep coming out on top. And Wilkerson plans to keep his momentum going through to the very end.
“We’re trying not to watch what the rest of the teams in the Top 10 are doing,” said Wilkerson. “But it's hard not to worry about them. We know they’re back there and are breathing down our necks. We just can’t let them affect our decision making. We need to try to just do our own deal and whatever happens - happens. That's what we've done all year. So, we're going to run as hard as we can. I know we haven't qualified as well as we had been the last four or five races. But if you look at the qualifying shows, like the last race, we ran a 4.079. There were five 4.07’s and we were the slowest. We really didn't qualify that bad. It just didn't look that good on the piece of paper.
“It's been an exciting year. There's no doubt about that. And now we're just going to keep our nose down and hopefully we can get some help from some of the other cars, by taking one of those other hot dogs out before we have to get to them. As my grandma used to say, ‘the proof of the pudding is in the tasting’. That's our deal. We have a good car. I think we've proven that through the year. Not to beat our chests, I don't do a lot of that. You know me; I'm not a guy who beats my chest about how good we are. I do have a terrific group of guys. They've made my car good. They've allowed me to make runs with me being the guy that has to make a mistake. And that's how we've won races this year. We've just had an extremely good, consistent car. As I've said in the past, my driving is probably the weakest part of it. But we're proud to be in the position we're in.”
There was a welcomed few weeks off before the team headed off to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the ACDELCO Las Vegas Nationals, quickly followed by the season finale at the Auto Club Raceway at Pomona. And even though Wilkerson would rather be racing, he took advantage of the time to get his men and his machine ready for the battle ahead.
“We went over everything with everybody during our time off,” explained Wilkerson, “and made sure there's no mistakes, that everything is happening correctly and that the car is prepared as well as it can. We got nicked (15 points) for an oil-down deal at Memphis. We need to make sure that little stuff like that don't bite us in the butt so we can continue on our path and hopefully we can be the champion when we’re finished.
“We did need a little bit of time to get our junk back in the pile, there's no doubt about that. We've been fixing cylinder heads the last couple weeks and trying to get enough motors in the trailer to go to the next couple races so we'll have enough to finish fighting this battle to the end. And I gave the guys a little bit of time off. They need a breather every once in a while. I know they need to take care of their home life. Now as for me, I'd go racing every day if I could. As a matter of fact my kid, Daniel and I went bracket racing every weekend. We haven't stopped racing; we just stopped racing the Funny Car.”
Wilkerson has captured six wins so far this season, one more than he had in the previous 12 years of his Funny Car career. The admitted Cinderella season makes Wilkerson happy, happy for everyone supporting him in his stunning success.
“It has been a Cinderella season and no matter what happens I will be so happy for my guys and my sponsors,” said Wilkerson. “You know, everyone said we wouldn’t hold on to the lead in the Countdown to 1 because we couldn’t handle the pressure. Well, little did they know that made us more determined. The pressure isn’t getting in our way. Things have just worked for us all year, while some of the others have faltered. That's just the way it's going to be. Sometimes you're the bug and sometimes you're the windshield.
“I like to think that we were this good a team before; we just didn't quite have the opportunities and resources. Dick Levi stepped up and gave us more money than we ever had this year. And our alliance with Don Prudhomme has given us the opportunity to use some equipment we really didn't have available to us before. I just think it shows you with the right amount of money, the right amount of perseverance, any team out there can do it. Fortunately this year we get to be the team going into the last couple races ahead of the pack.”
