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JOLIET, Sunday: With a strong qualifying effort and a quarter-final round appearance at the Torco Racing Fuels Route 66 Nationals, Springfield, Ill. Funny Car favorite, Tim Wilkerson leaves Route 66 Raceway still the NHRA POWERade points leader. This weekend the Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevrolet Impala SS was a good, consistent hot rod and Wilkerson was a great driver.
For the second week in a row, Wilkerson showed his driving talents as he took out his first-round opponent with a hole-shot win. This week it was the legendary, John Force that fell victim to Wilk’s quick reaction time. Wilkerson ran a 4.919 to Force’s quicker 4.904. Wilkerson’s margin of victory was .0024 seconds which translates into about 13 inches.
“That was a good run, there’s no doubt about that,” said Wilkerson. “We have to keep John behind us in the points chase. We need to keep everybody behind us. Unfortunately, Ashley (Force) is going to catch up with us a little because she had a better weekend.”
In the second round, Wilkerson faced Gary Densham. But Wilkerson’s 4.942 was no match against Densham’s 4.880.
“We would have liked to go another round or two,” said Wilkerson. “And I really thought we could but the car just slowed down. I don’t know why. I’m looking at the data trying to figure out what happened to it. Everything worked like it was suppose to, it just looked like a dog. I don’t think it would have gone a .88. I was looking for a .89 at the best, so I don’t think we’d had enough for Gary anyway. He ran quickest of the session, and good for them. They made a good run.
“We had a good weekend overall. We had a pretty good car. It went down the track every run outside of our first one when we had our little mishap with the broken fuel line. We still have a good car, so we’ll go to the next race and try again.”
A good weekend keeps Wilkerson in the lead
JOLIET, Sunday: With a strong qualifying effort and a quarter-final round appearance at the Torco Racing Fuels Route 66 Nationals, Springfield, Ill. Funny Car favorite, Tim Wilkerson leaves Route 66 Raceway still the NHRA POWERade points leader. This weekend the Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevrolet Impala SS was a good, consistent hot rod and Wilkerson was a great driver.
For the second week in a row, Wilkerson showed his driving talents as he took out his first-round opponent with a hole-shot win. This week it was the legendary, John Force that fell victim to Wilk’s quick reaction time. Wilkerson ran a 4.919 to Force’s quicker 4.904. Wilkerson’s margin of victory was .0024 seconds which translates into about 13 inches.
“That was a good run, there’s no doubt about that,” said Wilkerson. “We have to keep John behind us in the points chase. We need to keep everybody behind us. Unfortunately, Ashley (Force) is going to catch up with us a little because she had a better weekend.”
In the second round, Wilkerson faced Gary Densham. But Wilkerson’s 4.942 was no match against Densham’s 4.880.
“We would have liked to go another round or two,” said Wilkerson. “And I really thought we could but the car just slowed down. I don’t know why. I’m looking at the data trying to figure out what happened to it. Everything worked like it was suppose to, it just looked like a dog. I don’t think it would have gone a .88. I was looking for a .89 at the best, so I don’t think we’d had enough for Gary anyway. He ran quickest of the session, and good for them. They made a good run.
“We had a good weekend overall. We had a pretty good car. It went down the track every run outside of our first one when we had our little mishap with the broken fuel line. We still have a good car, so we’ll go to the next race and try again.”
