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RICHMOND, Friday: An afternoon rain turned the first day of qualifying at the
Torco Racing Fuels NHRA Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park into a one-attempt day. Tim Wilkerson would have liked to take better advantage of the only run of the day, but will have to settle for having his Levi, Ray & Shoup Funny Car in No. 13 slot for the night.
Wilkerson shook the tires early in the run so he pedaled hoping to save the run. But the track wasn't there and he smoked the tires. Wilkerson then gave up the run and coasted across the finish line at 8.742 at 90.69 mph.
"We went out there trying just to go down the track," said Wilkerson, "but the track was really pretty good. It stuck the tire really hard early and then went into early tire shake. And we haven't seen that out of this combination we've been running, in a long time. It just wore the clutch a little too much early, is what happened to it. The track didn't look very good, because it had bare spots all over it. But early it was so good that you either had to be on the bottom side of it or the topside of it. We were kind of in the middle and it didn't like that. We had motor to go a 4.70 and the clutch to go 4.85. So, it went through the clutch hard and made it shake.
"I looked back in my records and we had a similar problem in Reading, only we had a lot more clutch on the car and it went down the track. So, I'm relatively sure I know why it did what it did. So, tomorrow we'll just take what the track gives us and try to go down the track. Hopefully, when the day is over, well be in the show and get to play on Sunday."
Tire shake puts Wilkerson in the No. 13 spot
RICHMOND, Friday: An afternoon rain turned the first day of qualifying at the
Torco Racing Fuels NHRA Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park into a one-attempt day. Tim Wilkerson would have liked to take better advantage of the only run of the day, but will have to settle for having his Levi, Ray & Shoup Funny Car in No. 13 slot for the night.
Wilkerson shook the tires early in the run so he pedaled hoping to save the run. But the track wasn't there and he smoked the tires. Wilkerson then gave up the run and coasted across the finish line at 8.742 at 90.69 mph.
"We went out there trying just to go down the track," said Wilkerson, "but the track was really pretty good. It stuck the tire really hard early and then went into early tire shake. And we haven't seen that out of this combination we've been running, in a long time. It just wore the clutch a little too much early, is what happened to it. The track didn't look very good, because it had bare spots all over it. But early it was so good that you either had to be on the bottom side of it or the topside of it. We were kind of in the middle and it didn't like that. We had motor to go a 4.70 and the clutch to go 4.85. So, it went through the clutch hard and made it shake.
"I looked back in my records and we had a similar problem in Reading, only we had a lot more clutch on the car and it went down the track. So, I'm relatively sure I know why it did what it did. So, tomorrow we'll just take what the track gives us and try to go down the track. Hopefully, when the day is over, well be in the show and get to play on Sunday."
