Wilkerson had Friday the 13th blues

DENVER, Friday: Even before coming to the Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals, Tim Wilkerson knew tuning his Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevrolet Impala SS Funny Car was going to be a challenge. And the first day of qualifying on the mountain, which happened to be Friday the 13th, proved Wilkerson right.

In the first qualifying session, Wilkerson was one of the cars that was able to make it down the track without smoking the tires, posting a 5.290 at 279.27 mph. But Wilk had some smoke at the end of the pass. Wilkerson would have like to take advantage of the night run, but was not able to improve. He oiled the track, and only ran 5.425 at 205.63 mph.

"We smoked the motor out of it on both runs," explained Wilkerson, "so we're burning the motor up. We put pistons out both times. We didn't hurt the motor; we just had it too tuned-up. On the night run, it put a piston out so I shut it off and stopped on the track. We'll it was dripping oil, so they charged me for an oil down.

"Every time you come to this place, it's a mystery. Hopefully, we can tune it down a little, so we can make it down the track without putting out cylinders, and stay in the show."