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MADISON, Sunday: In front of his hometown crowd at Gateway International Raceway, Funny Car pro Tim Wilkerson saved his best run of the weekend at the O'Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals, for today. But his best wasn't enough to get his Levi, Ray & Shoup Monte Carlo past his first-round opponent, Mike Ashley.
Wilkerson posted a nice looking 4.922 at 313.15 mph, which was the best he made all weekend, but there wasn't a single Funny Car that could have beat the guy running next to him. Ashley posted the quickest run of the entire day, a 4.771 at 330.07 mph.
"Of course, we have to be the unlucky ones to have to run against the guy making the quickest pass of the day," said Wilkerson. "They really have their stuff together and it's a bad draw, when you draw them guys. As I watched everyone smoking the tires in front of us, I decided I'm not going to give it to him that way again. I wanted to make sure we made it down the race track. We made a pretty respectable run. I was trying for an 80, and it was pretty close.
"We changed our clutch deal a little bit for that run. After smoking the tires twice before, I decided not to run those levers again, and it's showing signs of improvement. It's a little slow in the middle now, so I have to try to fix that. . I have to figure out how to get it to like the middle of the track. I think I can get it done, we'll see what happens."
Wilkerson saves his best for last
MADISON, Sunday: In front of his hometown crowd at Gateway International Raceway, Funny Car pro Tim Wilkerson saved his best run of the weekend at the O'Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals, for today. But his best wasn't enough to get his Levi, Ray & Shoup Monte Carlo past his first-round opponent, Mike Ashley.
Wilkerson posted a nice looking 4.922 at 313.15 mph, which was the best he made all weekend, but there wasn't a single Funny Car that could have beat the guy running next to him. Ashley posted the quickest run of the entire day, a 4.771 at 330.07 mph.
"Of course, we have to be the unlucky ones to have to run against the guy making the quickest pass of the day," said Wilkerson. "They really have their stuff together and it's a bad draw, when you draw them guys. As I watched everyone smoking the tires in front of us, I decided I'm not going to give it to him that way again. I wanted to make sure we made it down the race track. We made a pretty respectable run. I was trying for an 80, and it was pretty close.
"We changed our clutch deal a little bit for that run. After smoking the tires twice before, I decided not to run those levers again, and it's showing signs of improvement. It's a little slow in the middle now, so I have to try to fix that. . I have to figure out how to get it to like the middle of the track. I think I can get it done, we'll see what happens."
