Championship Drag Racing

CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals
Chicago
(Sept. 25-28)

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Jeg's Allstars

Tim Wilkerson Levi Ray & Shoup Pontiac Firebird Funny Car

Reports: Sunday Saturday Pre-race

Chicago, Sunday: It was a cold, gray, blustery day for racing at the Third Annual CARQUEST Auto Parts Nationals. With the track temperature at only 64 degrees, Tim Wilkerson rolled the Levi, Ray & Shoup Funny Car up to the starting line to take on Del Worsham in the red Checker Shuck's Kragen car, in the first round of eliminations.

At the light, Wilkerson left on Worsham and the two Pontiacs did battle in a "good old" drag race. At the top end, Wilkerson's 4.862 wasn't enough to hold off Worsham's 4.786.

"The thing threw a spark plug out of it at 600 or 700 feet for some reason," explained a dejected Wilkerson. "I really don't know why it did that. It was a good race. I thought we could get past Del today. They did a great job and made a good run. So, now we'll get our stuff together, go to Pennsylvania, and see what will happen there."

The teams will be heading to Reading, Pa. to complete the running of the Lucas Oil Nationals that was rained out three weeks ago.

Chicago, Saturday: With only two qualifying attempts, Tim Wilkerson was able to qualify the Levi, Ray & Shoup (LRS) Pontiac in the No.12 position at the Carquest Auto Parts Nationals. Due to the way the remainder of the Funny Car class qualified, Wilkerson made the move into the top ten in the POWERADE Funny Car points race.

On the first pass of the day, the Springfield, Ill. native struggled with tire smoke and ran 5.501 seconds at 199.29 mph. On the second qualifying attempt, Wilkerson improved to run a 4.845 E.T. at 299.20 mph. His 12th place position will find him facing Del Worsham in the opening round tomorrow.

"On the first run, it was way fast," said Wilkerson, "and it smoked the tires. So we backed the thing way down. Obviously, we got a little timid, because we didn't want to end up like Frank (Pedregon) or Skuza (Dean) who didn't make the show. We had LRS guests today, so I kind of had my back to the wall, so I had to make a decision. I knew the thing would go mid 80 if it just went down there. So it did what we wanted. Fred asked me what I thought it would do and I said it would go 82. It would have gone 81 or 82 if it would have gone to the end, but it threw the bottom pulley off of it before it made it to the end.

"We're going to jazz it up and go out there tomorrow and whoop Worsham's ass. We're gunning for him. I just hope the ole' girl's got it in her. And then we need to go a few rounds tomorrow."

Wilkerson had his first Funny Car win here at Route 66 Raceway in 1999. If he can repeat that tomorrow he would move even further up in the points standings.

Chicago, pre-race: When Tim Wilkerson won Funny Car at the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals several weeks ago, it had been 68 events since a single-car Funny Car team won an event. Bruce Sarver was the last one when he won the Winternationals in 2000.

The win also earned Wilkerson the top spot in the NHRA.com Power Poll that asked, Which of the 2003 Indy Pro-class winners was the most deserving champion?.

For the Springfield, Ill.-based Wilkerson the third annual Carquest Auto Parts Nationals, being held in Joliet, Ill., this weekend, is yet another semi-hometown event that has him and the Levi, Ray & Shoup Pontiac as fan favorites. Added to the fact that the fans were behind Wilkerson's Indy win, a win here would bring the house down.

"We like racing in Joliet," Wilkerson said. "This is where I won my very first national event, and we'll have all our family and friends, the Wilk Warriors and a group of LRS guests supporting us this weekend. We had hoped to continue our winning streak in Memphis last week. But we experienced some carnage when we exploded on our Friday night run. It's a good thing that we were able to get back to the shop this week. It gave us a chance to get the LRS Pontiac back together. It would be great for everybody if we could be in the winner's circle at the end of the day on Sunday."

The bottom half of the POWERade Funny Car points race is close. Wilkerson is just nine points out of 10th place. With seven drivers in contention for the last five spots, a win this weekend for the LRS Pontiac could make Wilkerson a force to reckon with in the top 10 standings.