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READING, Saturday: Funny Car pro, Tim Wilkerson heads into race day at the Toyo Tires NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway with his Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevrolet Impala SS sitting in the No. 3 qualifying position. Wilkerson grabbed the high ranked spot last night and never let go.
Since Wilkerson had a good qualifying position, he used today's runs to test some new clutch levers. He smoked the tires on his first pass, and ran a 4.952 on his second run.
"Today was test day," said Wilkerson. "We ran a different set of clutch levers on our first qualifier. On our second qualifier we put our old stuff back in. And it was trucking right down through there and I don't know what happened to it but it dropped two holes at the same time. It was really weird looking on the graph. So, we're checking all our ignition and everything else to see if we find anything. Something weird happened down there. It was way down the track, so I'm really not sure how that went on. It was on a good run. It was going to go 4.85. It was only three hundreds behind our 81, so it was really trucking. So, we were pretty happy with that."
Wilkerson will have lane choice over his first-round opponent, veteran Gary Densham. The two have not met up in eliminations this year, so the outcome of their match-up will start the odds.
"Hopefully tomorrow the track's good first-round and we can run another 85 or so against Densham," said Wilkerson. "I don't know that lane choice matters. I think the right lane is a little rougher. But we'll take a close look at the starting line. It was terrible in the left lane on our last run. We changed the car to get through it and it went right though it. So, we were glad to see that. I don't think were too worried about lane choice later in the day. I think we can get down either one. So, maybe we can get a first-round win and go to the next one."
Wilkerson holds onto No. 3
READING, Saturday: Funny Car pro, Tim Wilkerson heads into race day at the Toyo Tires NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway with his Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevrolet Impala SS sitting in the No. 3 qualifying position. Wilkerson grabbed the high ranked spot last night and never let go.
Since Wilkerson had a good qualifying position, he used today's runs to test some new clutch levers. He smoked the tires on his first pass, and ran a 4.952 on his second run.
"Today was test day," said Wilkerson. "We ran a different set of clutch levers on our first qualifier. On our second qualifier we put our old stuff back in. And it was trucking right down through there and I don't know what happened to it but it dropped two holes at the same time. It was really weird looking on the graph. So, we're checking all our ignition and everything else to see if we find anything. Something weird happened down there. It was way down the track, so I'm really not sure how that went on. It was on a good run. It was going to go 4.85. It was only three hundreds behind our 81, so it was really trucking. So, we were pretty happy with that."
Wilkerson will have lane choice over his first-round opponent, veteran Gary Densham. The two have not met up in eliminations this year, so the outcome of their match-up will start the odds.
"Hopefully tomorrow the track's good first-round and we can run another 85 or so against Densham," said Wilkerson. "I don't know that lane choice matters. I think the right lane is a little rougher. But we'll take a close look at the starting line. It was terrible in the left lane on our last run. We changed the car to get through it and it went right though it. So, we were glad to see that. I don't think were too worried about lane choice later in the day. I think we can get down either one. So, maybe we can get a first-round win and go to the next one."
