Wilkerson loses by a glove

PHOENIX, Sunday: Tim Wilkerson and his Levi, Ray & Shoup Funny Car team were in high spirits as the day dawned on Firebird International Raceway for the 24th running of the Checker Schuck’s Kragen Nationals. Earning the coveted No. 1 qualifying position and the Full Throttle Pit Crew Challenge makes you feel that life is good. But those soaring spirits came crashing down as the team watched the beautiful hot rod struggle down the quarter-mile.

Wilkerson had troubles as he tried to leave the starting line. His glove got caught on the brake handle and he couldn’t get it off. So he was tugging on the brake as he was in the throttle trying to make it down the track. Of course, the engine didn’t like this and dropped a cylinder. He drove down most of the track one handed, which is not good in a Funny Car, especially a seven cylinder one. Fortunately he was able to get it released in order to pull the chutes and drive off the track. In all that mess, Wilkerson came up with a rather impressive number, a 4.940. But it wasn’t enough against his opponent, Bob Bode who ran 4.892.

“Bob made a nice run,” explained Wilkerson, “and got ahead of me on the starting line, big time. My glove got tangled up on my brake lever and I couldn’t get it loose. I drove down the track one-handed. I got it loose before the finish line, but I was thinking that I didn’t know what I was going to do because I wouldn’t be able to throw the chutes out. And it just mucked up the whole run. The brake pressure was up and down because I was jerking on the thing. It dang near just pulled by hand right out of my glove. Which would have been okay, but I couldn’t be sure. But it sure did muck up the whole thing. With all these new bars we’ve got in the car, the brake lever is kind of bent over and it got stuck on the corner of my glove. When we get back to the shop, we’ll look it over carefully and see if we need to change anything, so it doesn’t happen again.

“But I’m still optimistic. The car is running good and I think we should be able to keep that up. But man we need to get some race day luck, because this falling off the top is tough.”