Wilk Relishing Crunch Time
Posted by: Team Manager Bob Wilber
READING, Pa. (September 30, 2014) -- An outsider may look at Tim Wilkerson's No. 9 position in the NHRA Mello Yello points rankings and assume his Levi, Ray & Shoup team is making a middling or perhaps even subpar effort as the 2014 season winds down. With only three races left before a Funny Car champion is crowned, Wilk's chances of earning that enormous trophy are realistically about off the chart, but his ability to move well up in the standings to earn a lower digit on his car next year, and a bigger bonus check at this year's banquet, is not outside the realm of any sort of logic.
In addition, a quick look behind the points sheet tells a story that has little to do with middling or subpar performances. Tim Wilkerson and his group are actually running as well or better than they have in quite a while.
After frustratingly losing in three consecutive opening rounds right in the middle of the summer, Wilk found himself locked in a battle with Jack Beckman for the final spot in the Countdown playoffs. Then, with the pressure on, he reeled off a semifinal and two second-round results down the stretch, to claim the 10th and final playoff berth.
Since then, once the playoffs began, Wilk has won three rounds at three races, but even that .500 statistic is a bit misleading. His opening-round win in Charlotte was one of the most impressive runs that day, when he posted a superb 4.067 before the rest of the event was moved to Dallas. There, on a steaming hot track during what was also Q3 for Dallas, Wilk smoked the tires. The next day, on the same hot Dallas track, he ousted two championship contenders, Ron Capps and Matt Hagan, by running 4.173 and 4.209 on a racing surface that was topping out in the 130-degree range. Yes, he lost in the semifinal, but again ran very well (4.221) while he was victimized by Del Worsham's eye-popping 4.178; a lap most considered the single best pass of the day.
In St. Louis, with thousands of LRS staffers and Wilk's Warriors in attendance, the popular Springfield, Ill. owner/tuner/driver managed to squeeze into the field on his fourth shot after suffering problems adjusting to some new clutch components, and that last-ditch effort made his round-one assignment tougher. He again attacked the track with an aggressive tune-up that resulted in a strong 4.146 but, unfortunately, Tommy Johnson was just a tick better, and his 4.128 took the win.
"We got into the playoffs on the final day at Indy, and once we were in the Countdown I felt like there was no pressure on us" Wilk said. "It's not like we could finish any lower than tenth, even if we went 0-for-6 in the playoffs, so that allows you to be a bit more aggressive and lets you kind of shoot for what you think is out there, rather than playing it safe. Every lap, we're out there to run as fast as we can. We're not out there to try to avoid losing.
"We haven't really had any luck so far, I'll say that. We've beaten a bunch of great teams and lost some really close races to other great teams. There have been some crazy things happen at these first three playoff races. Heck, you might not see three bye runs all year, and we've had three at the first three playoff races, but we weren't lucky enough to be in the other lane when guys broke on the burnout or, in one case, when a team didn't make the trip to Dallas to finish the Charlotte race. That would've been nice, but if your playoff plan is to get lucky, you're asking for trouble because you can't predict when something strange like that is going to happen. We'll just keep plugging along and working hard, and hopefully we'll be able to move up a little more. Maple Grove is a good place to do that."
This weekend's NHRA Nationals, at historic Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Pa., will be the 30th annual NHRA trip to the rustic rolling woods surrounding Reading and with an early October date, this track that has always been known for peak performance might have the chance to truly shine in crunch time. Wilk's one shortcoming during this playoff stretch has been a tendency to miss the tune-up calls during the "hero sessions" and Maple Grove has been known to offer up those home-run derbies in the past.
"That's the only thing I'm agitated about right now, the Friday night misses we've had," Wilk said. "If you miss on Friday night this time of year, you can pretty much bank on being in the bottom half on Sunday, and that means you're going to be running a very fast car in round one. It's happened to us at the last two races, in Dallas and St. Louis, and at each of those we actually had to bump our way in during Q4. That's not a very good recipe for wins.
"The good news is, I see it as if we overcame the spot we put ourselves in both times. We beat Capps and Hagan in Dallas, and we almost beat Tommy in St. Louis. We ran well enough to win, but we were racing the wrong guy. We want to go into Reading and lay it all on the line, to see how much good we can do. We won't be timid."
Maple Grove, when the conditions are prime, does not reward timidity. Let the fun begin!
###