Championship Drag Racing

Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals
Brainerd, MN
(August 9-12)

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Driver Profile

Tim Wilkerson Levi, Ray & Shoup Shelby Mustang

Brainerd, Saturday: Tim Wilkerson is feeling good after two days of qualifying at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals Brainerd International Raceway.  He feels he has his Levi, Ray & Shoup Funny Car back, which makes him ready to tackle every challenge faces with a renewed confidence.

In today's first qualifying session, Wilkerson had the fans on their feet as he laid down a clean, straight, stellar 4.822 at 326.56.  At the time, it put Wilkerson at the top of the heap.  But several cars that followed also made good runs, so by the end of the session, Wilk moved into the No. 6 spot.  Wilkerson knew he had more in his awesome hot rod, so he stepped on it for the second run.  Unfortunately, the weather and the track got hot and Wilkerson wasn't able to improve on his first pass and coasted across the finish line at 9.161 seconds.  This time most of the Funny Car class also struggled with the track, so Wilkerson held onto his qualifying position.

"The car did just what we thought it would on our first run," explained Wilkerson, "and it did just what we thought on the second run.  The first run was a nice pass so we tried to go quicker on the second one, but it just wouldn't have anything to do with it.  Or at least not the way we tried to do it.  It got hot out and the track got hot, and we just gave it a little too much.  But it's okay, because it looks like we have our old car back and that's important."

Tomorrow morning Wilkerson will have lane choice over friend, Del Worsham in the first-round of racing action.

"I'm optimistic about tomorrow," said Wilkerson.  "I know we're going to have a challenge because Del is going to give us a run for the money.  But we're going to put up a great fight and I can just see us winning all our fights tomorrow."

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