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Good and Great Position Wilkerson 5th
Sat, 19 Sep 2009, 10:50 PM
Tim Wilkerson made a nice solid pass during Saturday's first qualifying session, on another day
when the weather forecasters fortunately struck out. His 4.154 was not at the top of the list for
Q3, but neither was it anywhere near the bottom, so all things considered, it ranked as a "good"
pass under tough conditions. A couple of hours later, though, when Q4 rolled around and Wilkerson
drove the Levi, Ray & Shoup Shelby Mustang from wire to wire, a 4.100 popped up on the board,
accompanied by a stout speed of 306.95 mph, and the reaction from the LRS team was a resounding
"Great!" The run moved Wilkerson back up the ladder, after he had fallen as far as 8th by the
time he ran, and his 5th-place position will pair him up in a first-round date with Jeff Arend on
Sunday.
The 4.100 was the second quickest run of the session, and therefore earned Wilk his first bonus
points in the new format. As the second-quickest, he earned two points.
"That was a nice pass, and now that I'm in a good position to see things in hindsight, I can see
how we could've done that earlier," Wilkerson said. "But that's called learning, and you don't
learn from success as much as you learn when you don't get it just right. The 4.15 had all sorts
of spots in the run where we could pick up, so we tweaked on it there and it ran 5-hundredths
quicker.
"It's funny how we're all pretty aware of this bonus point thing. It's not a lot of points, but
they're out there and someone's going to pick them up, so I think we're all pretty tuned-in to
making the best runs we can to see if we can grab some. We got two, and those two points are in
the bank. Who knows if we'll need them for something important in the end, but we have them now
and they're ours."
Team Wilkerson Racing
NHRA Nitro Funny Car
http://www.timwilkerson.com
Courtesy of Bob Wilber
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