Tim Wilkerson watched a few pairs of Top Fuel Dragsters run, early in the afternoon on Friday, and
knew one thing: Lane choice has a chance to be pretty important on Sunday. With nearly all the
Funny Car teams slowing down on Saturday, due to warmer temperatures and an earlier schedule, the
key for Wilkerson was to hope he could stay in the No. 8 spot for race day, and thereby gain that
sometimes-precious lane choice.
On his first lap, Wilk's Levi, Ray & Shoup Shelby smoked the tires early, but he came back in Q4 to
put a nice and clean 4.257 on the board, and in the end he did remain in the 8th spot. He'll face
No. 9 qualifier Ron Capps in round one on Sunday.
"It's not a one-lane track, by any stretch, but if you look at the numbers I bet you'll find most
people ran their better laps in the left, so having choice will be good thing," Wilkerson said.
"That doesn't mean there won't be winners out of the right, because you can get down that lane just
as well as you can get down the left, but any advantage, or even anything that even feels like an
advantage, is worth having.
"It was tricky out there today, and you had to pretty much tip-toe down through there to get to the
other end. The tough part tomorrow, and Sunday is supposed to be the hottest day of the weekend,
is what it's going to be like at 11:30 or so, when we run the first round. It might be cooler than
what we just ran in, because we just ran this lap right at the hottest part of the day and at 11:30
you might be 10 degrees short of your high. We'll check the track, check the air, and try to do
the best we can against Ron. He's tough on us, so it probably doesn't matter if he runs in the
right lane or on the return road, he'll be hard to beat."
Team Wilkerson Racing
NHRA Nitro Funny Car
http://www.timwilkerson.com
