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PHOENIX, Saturday: For the second straight race, Springfield, Ill. Funny Car favorite, Tim Wilkerson captured the No. 1 qualifying position in his Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevrolet Impala. It was a great day for Wilkerson as he took double honors with the quickest run in qualifying, an impressive 4.775 plus the fastest run in Funny Car, an equally impressive, 327.03.
Due to yesterday’s rain out there were only today’s two qualifying sessions for the Checker Schuck’s Kragen Nationals at Firebird International Raceway. And Wilkerson showed that he had the hot rod to beat in both sessions. On his first pass, he ran 4.813 at 317.57 mph, which put him on the top. Then as evening approached and coolness settled on the Arizona dessert, many of the other Funny Cars were making great runs and before Wilk got his turn, he had lost his No. 1 slot. Wilkerson rolled up to the starting line for his last attempt sitting in the No. 3 position. But Wilkerson saved the best for last, and closed the show with his 4.77 run and brought the crowd to their feet.
“We’re real happy with our performance today there’s no doubt about it,” said a pleased Wilkerson. “We’ll take our No. 1 and hopefully do a little good with it tomorrow. We had a mechanical failure in the first-round last week in Pomona when it broke a valve on the starting line, so hopefully we’ll stop doing that kind of stuff and go some rounds. We’ve got a good car, there’s no doubt about that. On our first run, it dropped a hole at about 4.5 seconds, so it should have run a little faster on that run. But it’s all good.”
A modest Wilkerson doesn’t want to take too much credit for back-to-back No. 1’s, the first in his Funny Car career, but it appears to be more than just luck.
“We’ll you know how I am, I don’t like to beat my chest over things like this,” said a modest Wilkerson, “but I like to think it’s not a coincidence. And like I said, we’re really happy. I’ve got a good group of guys working on my car, and my sponsors are behind me all the way, so it’s showing. And we’re having a ball.”
Tomorrow, Wilkerson’s first-round opponent will be a fellow Illinois racer, Bob Bode. Wilkerson will have lane choice over 16th place Bode, but Wilk isn’t going to let that make him over confident.
“We’re just going to worry about getting the car down the track,” explained Wilkerson, “that alone it a task. Look at what happened to us last week. We can’t take Bob for granted because anything can happen. We just hope that we can go some rounds.”
Wilkerson takes it to the top, again
PHOENIX, Saturday: For the second straight race, Springfield, Ill. Funny Car favorite, Tim Wilkerson captured the No. 1 qualifying position in his Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevrolet Impala. It was a great day for Wilkerson as he took double honors with the quickest run in qualifying, an impressive 4.775 plus the fastest run in Funny Car, an equally impressive, 327.03.
Due to yesterday’s rain out there were only today’s two qualifying sessions for the Checker Schuck’s Kragen Nationals at Firebird International Raceway. And Wilkerson showed that he had the hot rod to beat in both sessions. On his first pass, he ran 4.813 at 317.57 mph, which put him on the top. Then as evening approached and coolness settled on the Arizona dessert, many of the other Funny Cars were making great runs and before Wilk got his turn, he had lost his No. 1 slot. Wilkerson rolled up to the starting line for his last attempt sitting in the No. 3 position. But Wilkerson saved the best for last, and closed the show with his 4.77 run and brought the crowd to their feet.
“We’re real happy with our performance today there’s no doubt about it,” said a pleased Wilkerson. “We’ll take our No. 1 and hopefully do a little good with it tomorrow. We had a mechanical failure in the first-round last week in Pomona when it broke a valve on the starting line, so hopefully we’ll stop doing that kind of stuff and go some rounds. We’ve got a good car, there’s no doubt about that. On our first run, it dropped a hole at about 4.5 seconds, so it should have run a little faster on that run. But it’s all good.”
A modest Wilkerson doesn’t want to take too much credit for back-to-back No. 1’s, the first in his Funny Car career, but it appears to be more than just luck.
“We’ll you know how I am, I don’t like to beat my chest over things like this,” said a modest Wilkerson, “but I like to think it’s not a coincidence. And like I said, we’re really happy. I’ve got a good group of guys working on my car, and my sponsors are behind me all the way, so it’s showing. And we’re having a ball.”
Tomorrow, Wilkerson’s first-round opponent will be a fellow Illinois racer, Bob Bode. Wilkerson will have lane choice over 16th place Bode, but Wilk isn’t going to let that make him over confident.
“We’re just going to worry about getting the car down the track,” explained Wilkerson, “that alone it a task. Look at what happened to us last week. We can’t take Bob for granted because anything can happen. We just hope that we can go some rounds.”
