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NORWALK, Sunday: Springfield, Ill. Funny Car favorite, Tim Wilkerson enjoyed a great day of racing at the Inaugural Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at the newly renovated Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park. For the second race in a row, Wilkerson advanced past the first-round, while collecting valuable championship points.
Going into this weekend's event, Wilkerson had some concerns as to whether he could master the Norwalk, Ohio quarter-mile. But his talent and experience reigned. And he showed what he could do with his Levi, Ray & Shoup Impala SS, as he qualified in the top half of the field, had lane choice over both of his opponents, and made six strong runs.
Wilkerson's first-round opponent, Jeff Arend smoked the tires, but would have had trouble holding off Wilkerson's impressive 4.855 charge. In the second round Wilkerson took on Tony Pedregon, but a slight problem slowed Wilk and he could only muster a 5.052 on seven cylinders, and came up short against Pedregon's 4.961.
"It was running fine on our first pass," explained Wilkerson, "but when it hit those bumps in the right lane, is got to spinning the tire real bad and threw the rods out of it. So, we had a little extra work putting a fresh motor in it to get ready for the second round. And on that run, it swallowed something. We've got parts all inside no. 1 (cylinder). There was something in the intake manifold or maybe something on the track, I don't know. But it swallowed something though and when it did, it beat the spark plug shut and put a hole out. I was just trying to run the same thing we did on the first run and it had real nice drive shaft speed and everything was perfect until it put the hole out.
"But we're feeling great about our car. We're going down the track, and we won one round two weeks in a row, so maybe now we'll start going two."
Wilkerson pleased with Norwalk performance
NORWALK, Sunday: Springfield, Ill. Funny Car favorite, Tim Wilkerson enjoyed a great day of racing at the Inaugural Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at the newly renovated Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park. For the second race in a row, Wilkerson advanced past the first-round, while collecting valuable championship points.
Going into this weekend's event, Wilkerson had some concerns as to whether he could master the Norwalk, Ohio quarter-mile. But his talent and experience reigned. And he showed what he could do with his Levi, Ray & Shoup Impala SS, as he qualified in the top half of the field, had lane choice over both of his opponents, and made six strong runs.
Wilkerson's first-round opponent, Jeff Arend smoked the tires, but would have had trouble holding off Wilkerson's impressive 4.855 charge. In the second round Wilkerson took on Tony Pedregon, but a slight problem slowed Wilk and he could only muster a 5.052 on seven cylinders, and came up short against Pedregon's 4.961.
"It was running fine on our first pass," explained Wilkerson, "but when it hit those bumps in the right lane, is got to spinning the tire real bad and threw the rods out of it. So, we had a little extra work putting a fresh motor in it to get ready for the second round. And on that run, it swallowed something. We've got parts all inside no. 1 (cylinder). There was something in the intake manifold or maybe something on the track, I don't know. But it swallowed something though and when it did, it beat the spark plug shut and put a hole out. I was just trying to run the same thing we did on the first run and it had real nice drive shaft speed and everything was perfect until it put the hole out.
"But we're feeling great about our car. We're going down the track, and we won one round two weeks in a row, so maybe now we'll start going two."
