Wilk Speaks Englishtown
Posted by: Team Manager Bob Wilber
ENGLISHTOWN, N.J.. (May 27, 2014) -- "We need to take the next step," said Tim Wilkerson. "We need to take it to the next level, and get on a roll," he continued.
What Wilk is speaking about is not consistency. His Levi, Ray & Shoup Shelby Mustang Funny Car has been showing signs of that for many weeks. He's not talking about the occasional big run, because he's had a few of those already this season. What he speaks about, in plain English, is the need to take all the consistency and performance and turn it into a big Sunday, with a trophy presentation capping off the hard work. That "plain English" viewpoint can be realized this weekend, in the coincidentally named Englishtown, N.J., at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park.
This year's "summer crunch" of heavy racing has already started with stops in Atlanta and Topeka, and now Englishtown takes its place as the third race in three weeks, as well as the third race of 10 in a span of 12 weeks. Before the crunch is over, the tour will have worked its way from the deep south to the midwest, then to the east coast, before circling through Appalachia, New England, and the upper midwest, followed by the Rocky Mountain region, the San Francisco Bay area, and Puget Sound. It's not a schedule for the timid.
"It's a tough grind, but you just put your head down and power through it," Wilk said. "Each day is a new day, each race is a new race, every track is different, and you keep plugging. When you break it down into individual days, whether they're travel days, service days, or racing days, it becomes more manageable. When you're at the start of it and you look at the calendar, it's looks a lot worse than it really is.
"When we're at the track, it gets broken down further to each individual run, and that's the only way you can look at it. You just focus on the next lap, and you put everything you have into that run. We've had a good race car for most of the year, so it's time to focus on that next run and then make the most of it by going multiple rounds."
So far this season, Wilk has advanced out of the opening round at five of the eight races, but has only made it past round two at one, when he claimed a semifinal position at the 4-Wide Nationals in Charlotte. The five round wins have kept him in the top 10 for much of the year, but he knows he'll need improved results to stay there.
"The hard part is that there are more than 10 teams that are good enough to win and be in the top 10, and that math doesn't work," he said. "You've got Cruz Pedregon behind us in 11th, and he just went to the final round in Topeka and is running strong. Everyone ahead of us is capable of winning on any given weekend, so it's up to us to grab this thing by the horns and make a move. We have to take it to the next level, and Englishtown would be a fine place to do that.
"It's a really historic place, the fans are great and they love their drag racing, and it's a unique part of the country that's pretty different from Kansas, where we just were. I always see the Topeka-Englishtown transition as one of the most interesting parts of the schedule. It really doesn't get much more different than those two tracks and those two parts of the country. If it's so different, we might as well do something different and win four rounds."
The man speaks English. There would be no better place to take it to the next level than Englishtown. There would be no better time to do it than this weekend.
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