At The Countdown Wire, Wilk In The Driver's Seat
Posted by: Team Manager Bob Wilber
INDIANAPOLIS (August 31, 2015) -- Tim Wilkerson has not mathematically locked up a position in the NHRA Countdown to the Championship, but that's only because of the new 30-point scoring system put in place this year for the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. With a 159-point lead on 11th place Courtney Force, and with Robert Hight, Cruz Pedregon, and Alexis DeJoria slotted in between Wilk and Force, the scenarios that would have to take place in order for Wilk to be bumped from the post-season are as byzantine as an Indiana corn maze.
Basically, Force (six rounds behind Wilk) would need to completely run the table in terms of rounds and bonus points, and yet she would still have to hope for a Wilk DNQ in order to overtake him. Even if that unlikely scenario were to play out, there's still the pesky detail of Hight being one round behind him, Pedregon being two rounds back, and DeJoria being three. That's a lot of leapfrogging to accomplish, in just the right order, without any of the four taking one of the others out in the early rounds. Hight, the most recent winner on the Mello Yello tour, sits just seven points behind Wilk, in eighth place.
"All I can do now is focus on qualifying, and qualifying well," Wilk said. "If we do that, we'll be in a good spot with our Levi, Ray & Shoup Mustang. And I'm still looking up the points sheet anyway, because if we have a heck of a weekend we can still mathematically catch Ron Capps, thanks to the 30-point rounds. We're three rounds behind Ron, at 30 per round, but stranger things have happened. The bottom line is, we're a lot closer to Ron (78 points) than Courtney is to us.
"My goal is to qualify in the top half and win some rounds. It's that simple, really. And if a few of those qualifying laps also win us rounds in the Traxxas Nitro Shootout, that's even better. I'm definitely a team owner who watches his pennies, so any bonus money from the Traxxas deal will be a welcomed thing for us."
The Traxxas Nitro Shootout for the Funny Car class will take place during Sunday's qualifying sessions this weekend, at the legendary race known affectionately as The Big Go. The Traxxas special-event "race within a race" features the first seven different drivers who won a race this year and an eighth driver who wins a lottery based on a fan vote. Wilk won that fan vote and lottery the past two years, but this season earned his way into the event when he won in Atlanta. The Traxxas Shootout pays $100,000 to the winner.
"I've been watching as Courtney and Alexis are battling it out and are about in a tie for the fan vote, and I'm honest enough to admit I'm thrilled to not be in the vote this year," Wilk said. "Our fans are incredible, and they voted in droves the last two seasons, but even then you have to be fortunate with the pingpong balls and we sweated that out. Lucky enough for us, we won the lottery the last two years, too. Yeah, the math is in your favor when you win the fan vote, but any one of those 100 balls could be the one that pops out of the machine, and you almost want to put your hands over your eyes and peek through your fingers.
"So, all in all it's a different approach and different mindset for us this weekend. We're in the Traxxas Shootout, and we just need to do our own thing in qualifying and we'll be in the Countdown playoffs, too. Not having to stress over that, not just for me but for our team, our fans, and our sponsors like LRS, Curry's Transportation, and Summit Racing Equipment, who are all midwest-based, gives me some piece of mind and I can just focus on going fast. We've been going fast here lately, so I just want to keep that up."
Going fast, indeed. In Brainerd, Wilk lowered the boom on his previous career best of 3.971 when he stunned Chad Head in round one with a blistering 3.927 to overwhelmingly reset his career mark. That new one lasted only two hours, though, after he came back in round two to oust John Force with a 3.921 at a huge 328.70 mph, also a new career best. No one expects the conditions in Indy to be as stout as they were in overcast and chilly Brainerd, but it's also likely no one expects to see anything short of very fast runs and very low elapsed times. Tim Wilkerson just wants to be right in the middle of that. The rest will take care of itself.
In the end, Wilk can credit a strong July and August for putting him in this position. When he entered Norwalk during the Fourth of July weekend, he sat in 10th place and had only a 41-point lead on Courtney Force. Since then, he's won eight rounds in six races, going semifinal, semifinal, second round, first round, second round, and semifinal.
That's getting it done in crunch time.
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