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Persistent drizzle throughout much of the afternoon turned to heavy rain, complete with thunder and lightning, late in the day and professional racing was cancelled before a Top Fuel Dragster or Funny Car could take to the track. 

 After a brilliant start to the season, in terms of weather, this represented the second consecutive weekend where the Funny Car class lost an entire day due to inclement weather. It was Friday, last weekend in Charlotte, when the rains came just as the Funny Cars arrived in the lanes. Here, with it being Saturday, the Top Fuel cars were in the lanes when the skies opened up in earnest. The Team LRS Ford never left the pit area all day.

 ”Tough deal for everyone, and these days are worse than the busiest days of racing,” said Tim Wilkerson. “We had a big group of Levi, Ray & Shoup guests, and my guys over there did all they could to keep them entertained, but it’s no fun for anyone to spend a full day at the race track and not get to see their favorite car run.  We were keeping tabs on the radar all day, and all the weather websites, and basically they all missed by a mile. The same sites say it looks tough for tomorrow, so let’s hope they’re just as wrong on that call.”

 With the field set, Wilk will race from the No. 2 spot and will face Del Worsham in round one. There are a number of intriguing pairings in round one, including the Courtney Force / Alexis DeJoria match-up, the all-DSR Matt Hagan / Ron Capps tussle, and the wily veteran versus the youngest driver in the field, as John Force faces off against Blake Alexander.

 Funny Car pairings for round one:

 (1) Cruz Pedregon vs (16) Terry Haddock

 (2) Tim Wilkerson vs (15) Del Worsham

 (3) Robert Hight vs (14) Johnny Gray

 (4) Jack Beckman vs (13) Tony Pedregon

 (5) Courtney Force vs (12) Alexis DeJoria

 (6) Matt Hagan vs (11) Ron Capps

 (7) John Force vs (10) Blake Alexander 

(8) Bob Tasca vs (9) Jeff Arend

Tim Wilkerson had an almost flawless Houston race, in his Levi, Ray & Shoup Ford. He put back-to-back brilliant qualifying runs on the board, and then plowed through three rounds of eliminations better than any other Funny Car driver on the property. Then, with the drama of a short turn-around and and “live” television for the final, his tune-up finally slipped, as did his traction. Cruz Pedregon powered cleanly down the track for the win.

Like Charlotte before it, Houston featured only one day of qualifying when the other was rained out. Here, it was Saturday that was a wash, but Wilk’s two terrific runs on Friday had him sitting pretty in the No. 2 spot. His initial pass, a 4.161 right out of the box, was good enough for the 2nd spot, and worth two bonus points. He then came back with a 4.103 in Q2, which was also good enough for the No. 2 spot and worth another two bonus points.

“We came here feeling way better about the car, after Charlotte, and it showed right out of the blocks,” Wilk said. “That first one was big, because it not only takes the pressure off but it also gives you the confidence to push it a little more. The track came around, we stepped on it a little more, and it flew right down there. Easily our best qualifying effort on the year so far. That was good.”

After Saturday’s massive washout, which many forecasters missed, the teams came into Sunday not knowing what to believe in terms of weather. What they got was mostly sunny skies and humid conditions. Not ideal for going fast, but way better than the wet stuff.

Traction was not at a premium in the opening round, as pedaling jobs and tire smoke consumed the action, but Wilk found a way to get to the other end in fine fashion against a tire-smoking Del Worsham. He gave his car a quick slap of the pedal around 200 feet out, and it hooked up to run a solid 4.267, easily the lowest elapsed time of the round. It earned him a second-round date with 15-time champ John Force.

This time, Wilk powered end-to-end effortlessly, posting a big 4.198 to vanquish Force and move on to his second consecutive semifinal. Ron Capps would be waiting there.

“I got a little lucky on the pedal job in round one, and it hooked back up,” Wilk said, with far too much modesty. “I had a handle on it, though, and my guys worked their tails off. I figured we had a really good chance to make another solid lap.”

That he did. Posting a 4.202, Wilk sent Capps to the showers and advanced to his first true final of the year (not counting the 4-Wides, where the semis and final are the same round). Cruz Pedregon would be one opponent. 55-minutes for a “live” TV turnaround would be the other.

With big help from members of the Bob Tasca and TJ Zizzo teams, the thrash began with cameras in the pit. The action was furious, and this young crew was working their guts out to make it happen. As national TV viewers watched, they were ready to fire at 42 minutes, but some pesky ignition problems had to be solved. At 50 minutes, they were warmed up. At 55, the car was on the ground.

“That was about as stressful as you can get, and huge thanks to Marc, Tom, Tony, Mike, and all those guys who came over to help,” Wilk said. “Help is good, but only when it’s good help, if you know what I mean. Those guys knew where they could dive in and make the process shorter, without getting in the way and actually making it longer. My crew guys were busting their tails so hard, with such great determination, it was thrilling. They earned every bit of getting on TV in the final round.”

Pedregon’s team also had problems during the short service, and the TV audience was along for the ride as both teams sprinted to the line to make their deadline. With seconds to spare, the Pedregon team was ready and fired up.

This time, Wilk’s streak of strong laps finally ran its course. Tire smoke before mid-track ended his day with tired disappointment, but it wasn’t long before the owner/tuner/driver could see what a great weekend it had been.

“We’ll get one,” he said. “We’re so much farther ahead right now than we were just a couple of weeks ago it’s not funny. It was a letdown for us to mess up there, but we’ll get one and these guys will get their Wallys. It’s about to be summer, and we have a great hot rod right now. We’ll get there.”

One would be mistaken to not believe him.

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Team Wilkerson Racing
NHRA Nitro Funny Car

http://www.timwilkerson.com

BAYTOWN, Tex. (April 23, 2013) — Baytown, Texas sits due east of Houston along I-10, and in many ways it’s no more unusual than any small city on the edge of a mega-metropolis. It has shopping malls, restaurants, schools, and post offices, an interstate highway and even a new toll road. It also is home, though, to a series of massive oil refineries that light up the night sky 365 days a year, and a race track that hosts the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing series. Both facilities feature flames and fumes, but it’s this weekend’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Spring Nationals, at Royal Purple Raceway, that will be the magnet attracting tens of thousands of fans to the Baytown area, filling hotels and eateries for miles around.

For Tim Wilkerson, driver of the Levi, Ray & Shoup Shelby Mustang Funny Car, the refinement process won’t be restricted to the nearby petroleum facilities. In his case, it’s simply a matter of taking what is currently a good crude product, and refining it into the finished form he seeks on the race track. His LRS Ford has been up and down this year, both over the stretch of the initial five races and within those races themselves, but the light at the end of the tunnel is shining brighter as of late, and he feels like he’s about to turn a big corner.

“We’re still not there, where we want to be and where we know we can go out there and make four or five or even eight straight laps that are all right on target, but we’re getting closer,” Wilk said, as he toiled through this week’s short turn-around after the conclusion of the Charlotte race. “In Charlotte, we hit one right on the button during the last qualifying pass, when the pressure was on and he had to do some good. Then, in the second round we hit another one square, winning our quad with room to spare and sending us on to the final round. Those felt good, but we ended with a thud when we missed by a mile in the final.

“With each one of these laps, we’re continuing to learn and make it better, and that’s a good thing. I wish I had the budget to start the calendar year with 20 or 25 testing laps in Florida, but I don’t and I have to maximize what we do when it counts. We’re getting more familiar with what the car wants, and getting a better handle on the clutch department, so it’s looking up. Now we have to be ready for Houston, because our guys are still learning the ropes as a crew and if we make it to the final, we’re going to need every second of time they give us to make the live TV slot.”

NHRA and ESPN2 will be testing the waters of “live” television this weekend, and on Sunday that means the semifinals and finals will be telecast as one continuous show, as it occurs instead of tape-delayed and packaged. With that tight TV window, the pro teams in the final round will have 55 minutes to service their cars and get back to the starting line.

“Originally they said 50 minutes, and I’m telling you honestly my guys are not ready to do that yet, and very few of the established teams out here are able to do that unless everything goes perfect during the service,” Wilk said. “They’ve decided to give us 55, which is still going to be a stretch for us if we’re lucky enough to be in the final, but they’ve also worked out some extra police escorts to get us through the crowds, so that should help. I hope it’s something we have to worry about, because that would mean we’re having a very good day.”

Wilk’s good day in Charlotte moved him from 12th place in the Mello Yello standings up to the 9th position, although the points are still as tight as a Texas cowboy’s jeans. To keep moving in the right direction, Wilk needs to maintain the refinement he’s been instilling in his car, and his team.

“One lap at a time, one day at a time, we just try to get a little better,” he said. “These guys don’t lack determination or effort, but we’re a young team right now and we’re not just learning the plays, we’re also learning how to run them at top speed. It got better in Charlotte, and it will get better in Houston, and so on down the line. The more laps we win, the more laps we run and the more they learn. It’s all going in the right direction, and we’re not too far away from busting out and winning one of these things. If we can do that in Houston, with a 55-minute turnaround, I’ll be the happiest guy in the place and the proudest, too.”

With a Funny Car that burns nitromethane and methanol, while lubricating its internal parts with 70-wt synthetic oil, the refinement process is already a major part of the equation. When it comes to refining the results, Wilk is working on that, as well.

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Team Wilkerson Racing
NHRA Nitro Funny Car

http://www.timwilkerson.com

Much about this year’s running of the Dollar General 4-Wide Nationals seemed a little off kilter and out of whack, beginning with a full rain-out on Friday which created a “get in or go home” pair of four-wide runs on Saturday. On Sunday, a rare 12:00 noon start added to the surreal nature of things, and as is always the case the final round was one where a driver could finish his day as the winner, the runner-up, or as one of two semifinalists, despite it being only the third round of the race.

For Tim Wilkerson, a good day was already in the bank when he pulled up to run in that third and final round, but a great day eluded him when tire spin caused him to finish third in the four-driver group. What could’ve been a win, or at least the equivalent to a normal final round, was instead a semifinal finish that was earned with the drama of a final.

After the washout on Friday, Wilk and his Levi, Ray & Shoup group joined the majority of Funny Car teams during Saturday’s first session, by failing to make a full clean pass. His 5.162 was nothing to write home about, but it still slotted him into the 11th position going into the second and final qualifying session, run in front of nothing short of an enormous crowd at zMAX Dragway. During that lap, Wilk found his stride and ripped off a 4.095 to go from the 14th spot (at the time) all the way up to the No. 4 position. In addition, he recorded the quickest run of the session and therefore picked up three bonus points. It was all good.

Only at the 4-Wides, though, can qualifying fourth nearly guarantee that you’ll run last in the opening round. With four “quads” of cars running in round one, instead of the standard eight pairs of two, the fourth group got final choice for position and, as expected, only the final slot was left. On top of that, the shortened qualifying program left the entire order in some disarray, with surprise No. 1 qualifier Chad Head earning every bit of the top spot, while other championship caliber teams were scattered all over the top 16. Speaking of contenders, Johnny Gray was the unlucky 17th driver here, as he failed to qualify. Wilk’s opening-round quad featured him, Del Worsham, Courtney Force, and Cruz Pedregon. Pick your poison!

“We saw the names in the quad with us and it was like ‘You’re kidding me, right’,” Wilk said. “You go low for the final session, move up to fourth, and it was like we had barely made the show and had to run three outstanding teams and drivers. And then you add in the part about knowing we’d also have to go last in the round, and it really felt like we didn’t get much reward for that run, but at least we had first lane choice so that was good.”

After Friday’s storms, a cool front moved through and made Saturday a delight, although partly cloudy skies and cooler conditions made Sunday a bit brisk and a challenge for tuners. Wilk chose Lane 1 for the first round, and this one earned no style points for anybody. All four cars failed to make a clean run, and a four-wide pedaling duel ensued, much to the delight of the crowd. Pedregon got across the stripe first, but Wilk was able to outrun Force and Worsham to grab the second position and advance.

Moving on to round two, Wilk’s quad included himself, Head, Pedregon, and Robert Hight. Once again, no favors. This time, however, Wilk didn’t need to pedal and he needed no good fortune. His 4.095 matched his qualifying effort and it propelled him into the final group as the winner of the round.

“We all messed up on the first one a little, and I was just lucky enough to get my car to the other end in second place, but ugly wins are still wins and I’ll take that,” Wilk said. “Our clutch program has been coming around, and this time we got it all to work together right in round two, and the car did exactly what I wanted it to do. That was a heck of a run, and once you get to that point you start to build that confidence and you know you have a chance. The final quad was going to be a big challenge, but we had as good a chance as anyone.”

That final group included Matt Hagan, the aforementioned Head (who clearly was having a stellar weekend during the first race at which he had ever qualified) and Blake Alexander, who was also treading in uncharted territory being this deep into a race. It was anyone’s game, and all four drivers had already posted good days. It was up to one of them to make it a great one.

Hagan was the man who did it, posting another fantastic lap (4.071) to take the win light, while young Alexander posted a solid 4.156 run to grab the runner-up position. The glass slipper finally didn’t fit rookie driver Head, who finished fourth in the group after early trouble. Wilk spun the hoops around the 330 mark, and finished third. The semifinal finish moved him from 12th in the points standings up to 9th, however, and it was a good day.

“We need to bust out of it and get a win here soon, but we made a lot of progress today and I’m happy with that,” Wilk said. “I was a little back-and-forth there as we were waiting to run, because the sun would pop out and it would heat right up, then a big cloud would move in and the temperature would drop. Maybe we missed the call on that, I don’t know, but we gave it our shot and I know a lot of people would trade places with us right now, so it’s good.

“This four-wide race is a crazy deal, but man the fans sure seemed to like it and we had great crowds when it wasn’t pouring rain on us. The funniest thing I noticed this time was that the two drivers and teams that advanced each round would kind of celebrate together down there at the end of the track. First, you get out of your car and you want to know if you were first or second, and then when you learn you are, and the other guy hears he’s moving on too, everyone hugs and high-fives down there. When you race one-on-one, that doesn’t happen. Kind of a neat deal, and like I said the fans sure seem to like it so that’s good. This track is massive, and we still just about filled it on Saturday, so there were a lot of people watching all this and feeling the noise and power of all that horsepower going down the track at once. We need to thank all of them for coming out, and thank the track staff for being one of the best there is. This place is world class, all the way around.”

The Mello Yello tour now heads directly to Houston, where qualifying will begin on Friday.

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Team Wilkerson Racing
NHRA Nitro Funny Car

http://www.timwilkerson.com

CHARLOTTE (April 16, 2013) — Tim Wilkerson never thinks about the driver in the other lane when he’s competing on the NHRA Mello Yello tour, whether it’s a fresh-faced rookie or a wily veteran lined up against him. This weekend, at the NHRA Dollar General 4-Wide Nationals, he’ll maintain that same steely focus, but he’ll be doing so by ignoring three other drivers on every lap, instead of just one. As the only professional drag race in the world that features competition on four lanes at the same time, the Charlotte event is a major spectacle of horsepower, but Wilk’s narrow approach aims to eliminate the distraction caused by a double-set of race cars.

Racing 4-wide in official competition began in 2010, after a one-off set of exhibition runs in 2009. Early on, the format caused some stress and consternation among the drivers and teams, but the creation of a new staging-light system (now the norm throughout the tour, no matter the number of lanes) eased much of the confusion and the drivers quickly adapted. Now, they seem to slide into this unique form of drag racing with little problem.

“That first exhibition was a bit of a mess, but none of us had ever done anything like that,” Wilk said. “Then, in 2010 we came here for real and it still took some getting used to, but it was one of those things where we had to figure it out because it counted, and you need to be focused when you’re racing for points and possibly a championship. As the years have gone by, and now we’re coming back for the fourth time, we’ve got the routine down and we’re all in pretty good shape with it.

“It’s not just the drivers, either. The crew chiefs almost always make eye contact when it’s time to get staged, to make sure everyone is ready to go. Here, when you have four cars running, you’ve got crew chiefs having to check on three other teams and tuners, looking both ways, and raising their hands to signal they’re ready. That’s just kind of how you figure these things out on the fly. In regular racing, it’s just a nod or a look between crew chiefs. They all adapted to raising their hands because you need to see three other people in the middle of four roaring race cars.”

With the possible distraction of four cars racing at once put out of the picture, Wilk’s focus will remain tightly aimed at qualifying well and winning rounds. After a solid 2-2 start to the season in Pomona and Phoenix, Wilk has landed in the bottom half of the field and gone out in the first round at the last two races, in Gainesville and Las Vegas. It’s clearly time for a Charlotte shuffle to get the Levi, Ray & Shoup Shelby Mustang headed back in the right direction.

“It’s still early, and you can make up a ton of spots with one good race, but you don’t want to let it get out of hand like some sort of slump, so we’re ready to get back on the positive track this weekend,” he said. “The first trick is to get qualified better. We haven’t been at our best the last couple of races, but we’ve made a few small changes that we hope will help and if we can just consistently get down the track on Friday and Saturday we’ll be in better position. Get in the top half, and win some rounds. That’s the goal. If we have to beat three people at a time to do that, then that’s what we’ll do.”

Adding to the allure of this weekend’s race is the always impressive stature of zMAX Dragway and the promise of some new advances at the “Bellagio of drag strips”.

“It’s the best facility for drag racing in the world, that’s the bottom line,” Wilk said. “We have some fantastic stadiums on our tour now, and we have some older tracks with history you can’t just make up. From start to finish, we’re racing in better venues than ever and that tells me we’re doing something right. But at the top is zMAX, and we hear they’re bringing out some new stuff this time around, just to keep improving what’s a great place already. That won’t make much difference to me when I’m in the car, but if the fans like it then I’m all for it.”

Bigger, better, faster, and more powerful. It’s all about the NHRA Dollar General 4-Wide Nationals.

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Team Wilkerson Racing
NHRA Nitro Funny Car

http://www.timwilkerson.com