Wilkerson learns from his first-round mishap
<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/t_wilkerson.jpg" alt="t_wilkerson"align="left"borders="0" />
READING, Sunday: Funny Car points leader Tim Wilkerson had the strongest, most consistent car in qualifying at the Toyo Tires Nationals, but that strength went away today when woes befell the Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevy Impala SS on the starting line and ended the Springfield, Ill. native’s day early.
Wilkerson could tell that things weren’t right with the 8,000 horsepower motor after he backed up from his first-round burnout. The no. 2 cylinder was dead and fuel had leaked onto the track. He and car chief, Jeff Jacobs did as much as they could to fix the problem in the few seconds available to them as his opponent Jack Beckman got into position. As Wilkerson hit the throttle, his cylinder problem cleared up, but of course, his right rear slick got into the puddle of fuel and the car slid, shoving him out of the groove. Wilkerson was able to make the run but it was his slowest of the weekend, a 4.279 against Beckman’s 4.219.
“It run a piece of junk or stuck a check (valve) in one of the holes after the burnout,” explained a disappointed Wilkerson “and when you have one of those open it’s just like having two idle nozzles in it. And then that one hole is boogered up. So in our 15 seconds of trying to figure out how to fix it, I just had Jeff idle the thing up real high. And when we did that, it made it fast. It picked the hole up and then the car was fast. So then the car was too fast. Then it run over the puddle of fuel leaving the starting line and it made the car sashay over to the right, so now I’m out of the groove. It was all bad. We’ve already thought and talked about it and if it would ever happen again we have a little plan of action.
“We’re all way disappointed with today, but that’s part of it. You know in the split second you make a decision you really think it might be the right one, but you never know. We really learned something so we’re able to take some good out of the episode. All we can do now is hope Tony (Pedregon, second in points) gets beat today and we can stay in first place as we head to Indy.”
<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/t_wilkerson.jpg" alt="t_wilkerson"align="left"borders="0" />
READING, Sunday: Funny Car points leader Tim Wilkerson had the strongest, most consistent car in qualifying at the Toyo Tires Nationals, but that strength went away today when woes befell the Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevy Impala SS on the starting line and ended the Springfield, Ill. native’s day early.
Wilkerson could tell that things weren’t right with the 8,000 horsepower motor after he backed up from his first-round burnout. The no. 2 cylinder was dead and fuel had leaked onto the track. He and car chief, Jeff Jacobs did as much as they could to fix the problem in the few seconds available to them as his opponent Jack Beckman got into position. As Wilkerson hit the throttle, his cylinder problem cleared up, but of course, his right rear slick got into the puddle of fuel and the car slid, shoving him out of the groove. Wilkerson was able to make the run but it was his slowest of the weekend, a 4.279 against Beckman’s 4.219.
“It run a piece of junk or stuck a check (valve) in one of the holes after the burnout,” explained a disappointed Wilkerson “and when you have one of those open it’s just like having two idle nozzles in it. And then that one hole is boogered up. So in our 15 seconds of trying to figure out how to fix it, I just had Jeff idle the thing up real high. And when we did that, it made it fast. It picked the hole up and then the car was fast. So then the car was too fast. Then it run over the puddle of fuel leaving the starting line and it made the car sashay over to the right, so now I’m out of the groove. It was all bad. We’ve already thought and talked about it and if it would ever happen again we have a little plan of action.
“We’re all way disappointed with today, but that’s part of it. You know in the split second you make a decision you really think it might be the right one, but you never know. We really learned something so we’re able to take some good out of the episode. All we can do now is hope Tony (Pedregon, second in points) gets beat today and we can stay in first place as we head to Indy.”
