Wilkerson Clinches Spot In NHRA Countdown
Posted by: Nicole Erickson
Brainerd, MN (August 21, 2016) – Tim Wilkerson clinched his spot in the NHRA Mello Yello Countdown to the Championship this past weekend at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, Minnesota.
Tim Wilkerson qualified the Levi, Ray & Shoup Ford Shelby Mustang tenth with a run of 3.935 seconds at 323.50 mph. In the first round, Wilkerson defeated 16x World Champion John Force with a run of 3.923/324.75 to 3.954/288.39.
In the second round Wilkerson faced Del Worsham. Wilk left the line just a little too early, getting the red light and automatically giving the victory to eventual race winner, Worsham.
“We’re trying to make the car go down the track and it’s behaving and it’s consistent again. Hopefully all that other stuff we’ve dealt with this season will be behind us,” Wilkerson said. “We’re trying our best. We’re going to try and wear the rest of them out, the rest of the year. I’m going to try and not make mistakes.”
With that first round victory, Wilkerson secured a spot in the NHRA Mello Yello Countdown to the Championship. He is currently ninth in the Nitro Funny Car point standings going into the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis August 31 – September 5. This is the final regular season race of 2016.
“Now we can go into Indy and make some runs and get ourselves in the countdown a little deeper before it starts out and win some money there,” Wilkerson said. “We also have the Traxxas Shootout that same weekend and that would be something good to come home with too.”
Even though the next NHRA race is two weeks away, the team will be busy in the days leading up to the event.
“We’re going to go to Memphis and make some money match racing next weekend and then on to Indy so we have a lot of runs in front of us for the next couple weeks,” said Wilkerson. “We’re going 11 weekends in a row; we’re right in the middle of it right now.”
Follow Tim Wilkerson Racing on Social Media: