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BRAINERD, Friday: It was an uncharacteristically hot day in the Brainerd Lakes Region today and the heat affected the first day of qualifying at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals. Funny Car pro, Tim Wilkerson looked past the heat and was able to master the hot Minnesota quarter-mile in his Levi, Ray & Shoup Impala SS. Wilkerson ended the day taking the No. 7 qualifying position with his 4.937 at 306.88 mph.
On a very hot mid-afternoon run, Wilkerson did smoke the tires around half-track in the day's first qualifying session but his 5.788 was good for the No. 10 spot. It was in the later session as the track cooled slightly, when Wilkerson made a good clean pass that moved him up into the No. 7 position.
"On our first pass it just wore a little too much clutch and then smoked the tires in the middle," said Wilkerson. "The track wasn't too good because it was hot. It was 132 degrees. A few other teams negotiated it and I think we would have been okay if it hadn't wore so much clutch. This is actually a different clutch pack than what we've been running. We lost a disc and we had to replace it with another one. We tested it last week in Norwalk and we ran it the same way on our first run. So, I just changed it a little on our second run. I just made it wear a little less and it worked fine. I was a little too conservative on the run, though. It's suppose to rain tomorrow and you worry about that. And after the last few weeks where we got bumped out, it makes me a little leery about running the car. The track was 114 degrees. And we can run a high 80 on that, but everything has to be just right. So we thought we would just go up there and go 90 to 95, and that's just what it did.
"So, we did just what we wanted to do today. We got our car in the show and we're learning how to run again. We're starting over with our race car and trying to figure out what we did wrong on the Western Swing."
Wilkerson takes the No. 7 spot
BRAINERD, Friday: It was an uncharacteristically hot day in the Brainerd Lakes Region today and the heat affected the first day of qualifying at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals. Funny Car pro, Tim Wilkerson looked past the heat and was able to master the hot Minnesota quarter-mile in his Levi, Ray & Shoup Impala SS. Wilkerson ended the day taking the No. 7 qualifying position with his 4.937 at 306.88 mph.
On a very hot mid-afternoon run, Wilkerson did smoke the tires around half-track in the day's first qualifying session but his 5.788 was good for the No. 10 spot. It was in the later session as the track cooled slightly, when Wilkerson made a good clean pass that moved him up into the No. 7 position.
"On our first pass it just wore a little too much clutch and then smoked the tires in the middle," said Wilkerson. "The track wasn't too good because it was hot. It was 132 degrees. A few other teams negotiated it and I think we would have been okay if it hadn't wore so much clutch. This is actually a different clutch pack than what we've been running. We lost a disc and we had to replace it with another one. We tested it last week in Norwalk and we ran it the same way on our first run. So, I just changed it a little on our second run. I just made it wear a little less and it worked fine. I was a little too conservative on the run, though. It's suppose to rain tomorrow and you worry about that. And after the last few weeks where we got bumped out, it makes me a little leery about running the car. The track was 114 degrees. And we can run a high 80 on that, but everything has to be just right. So we thought we would just go up there and go 90 to 95, and that's just what it did.
"So, we did just what we wanted to do today. We got our car in the show and we're learning how to run again. We're starting over with our race car and trying to figure out what we did wrong on the Western Swing."
