Three-time Seattle winner Wilkerson heating up as NHRA returns to favored facility
Posted by: Kelly Topolinski
SPRINGFIELD, IL. (August 3, 2017) – The Western Swing, NHRA's trio of races on back-to-back-to-back weekends out West, has already been quite eventful for Tim Wilkerson and his Levi, Ray and Shoup Ford Shelby Mustang Funny Car team. The best news so far is that the group raced to the final last weekend in Sonoma despite having to debut a brand new chassis following a particularly treacherous weekend in Denver. They had some lucky breaks last weekend, but they've shown determination and grit throughout the Swing, and this weekend they hope to turn that into victory at the 30th annual NHRA Northwest Nationals at Seattle's Pacific Raceways.
From 2009 to 2011, Wilkerson was unstoppable in Seattle, winning three in a row and closing out his three-peat with a No. 1 qualifier award to boot.
"It hasn't shown it lately, but that place loves me. If I showed up you might as well not even come to the starting line," said Wilkerson, who won 13 consecutive rounds in Seattle before anyone could stop his reign. "Hopefully, we can bring some momentum there this year and do some good again."
Last season, Wilkerson was out in the first round and credits that to simply "being greedy" for speed. This year, hot off a runner-up performance last weekend in Sonoma, the driver of the Levi, Ray and Shoup Ford Shelby Mustang is in a different mind-frame.
"I'm tired of getting beat that way, and we're really trying to a better job of that now," said Wilkerson. "It looks like we'll have some pretty hot conditions there in Seattle this weekend, and that's very unusual for that place. It's a tricky racetrack, anyway, but last year we ran like a house of fire [in qualifying]. We made some really good runs, and I'm really happy to be going there. But we'll see. We'll fight the weather and see what we can come up with to get down that track.
"Right now one of our biggest challenges is the John Force Racing cars. I don't know what we're going to do with them; when the sun goes down, those guys are brutal. But qualifying and racing them are a different story. They haven't figured out how to make their super-fast cars consistent yet, but that's a great group over there, and they're going to – then it's going to be ugly. I'm going to have to figure out how to be four- or five-hundredths quicker, or just figure on running the best I can and hoping that what happened in Sonoma happens a lot."
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**Full results posted throughout the weekend at DragRaceCentral.com**
Race Info
30th annual NHRA Northwest Nationals
Pacific Raceways
Seattle, Washington
August 4-6, 2017
Run Schedule (all times PST)
Friday, August 4
8:30 am - Sportsman qualifying
2:30 pm - Pro qualifying session 1
5:00 pm - Pro qualifying session 2
Saturday, August 5
9:15 am - Sportsman eliminations
1:30 pm - Pro qualifying session 3
4:00 pm - Pro qualifying session 4
Sunday, August 6
11:00 am - Eliminations
Television Schedule (all times EST)
(According to NHRA.com, August 3, 2017)
Friday, Aug. 4, FS1 will televise one hour of qualifying coverage at 9 p.m. (ET).
Sunday, Aug. 6, FS1 will televise one hour of qualifying coverage at 2 a.m. (ET).
Sunday, Aug. 6, FOX will televise three hours of LIVE finals coverage at 4 p.m. (ET).
Photo credit: Auto imagery