Houston, Prerace: Springfield, Ill. Funny Car favorite, Tim Wilkerson has had a great start to the 2008 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing season, earning back-to-back No. 1 qualifying spots and a semifinal round appearance. However, Wilkerson knows that he and his talented team need to stay focused in order to keep his tuning and driving skills and the performance of his Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevy Impala SS ranked in the top in the country. So, qualifying and going rounds on race day is what they are striving for as they prepare for this weekend’s O’Reilly Spring Nationals at Houston Raceway Park.

“We need to keep focused,” expressed Wilkerson. “We can’t lose focus on what we’re there for and that’s first, to qualify and second, go rounds on Sunday.

“We stayed in Gainesville after the Gator Nationals and tested our new blowers. They showed promise but we’re not ready to run them yet. Before we can run them we need to do some alterations to our fuel system. Besides we want to test them some more because we’re looking for longevity and they’re not showing us any. So, we’ll just run our old stuff in Houston and pretty much do the same thing we’ve been doing all along this year Right now we’ve got a strong and consistent car and everything seems to be going in the right direction for us. So, if it keeps up we should be in good shape”.

Wilkerson earned a win at this event in 2004, so he knows what it takes to go to the top.

“Houston is a good track,” Wilkerson explained, “and it’s forecasted to be warm during the day which will cause issues. That means the night run is going to be important. So, we’ll try to do our best and see what happens.”

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