Englishtown: Tim Wilkerson Friday notes

LESS THAN WILK WANTED, BUT STILL GOOD ENOUGH FOR 7th

Tim Wilkerson took his Levi, Ray & Shoup Shelby to the starting line late on Friday afternoon, knowing the track conditions would have to be better than the sizzling and loose surface he had attempted to race on earlier. That first run, a 4.726, featured the requisite tire smoke after half-track, but with the sun going down and the temperatures abating somewhat, there were home runs to be had in Q2. Wilkerson took a big swing, but a "double off the wall" was what he had to settle for. Aiming to run something in the 4.14 area, the LRS Shelby instead went A-to-B in 4.177, and although slightly disappointed with that number, Wilk was more than willing to accept the top-half position it provided. He currently sits 7th with Saturday yet to come.

"We must have just had some sort of clutch malfunction there, because it was just zinging the whole way and I kept thinking 'Okay, pull it down now, let's go' but it really never did," he said. "It just screamed all the way to a finish line and maybe we're a bit lucky the 4.17 held in there for the seventh spot. When I heard the number, my first thought was to hope it would hold on for the top twelve, but instead we'll be in the top half of the field going into Saturday.

"Today, the weather guys got it right. They said the rain would move out and the sun would come out, and that's just what happened. They didn't mention anything about the steam rising off the asphalt, but you're going to have some serious humidity on a day like this. We went from rain and mist to hot sun, all in about a half-hour, and it was really hot out there. The first session was just an exercise in trying to see how far you could go, and we got far enough to get a handle on it. The last one was your chance to hit one out, and we didn't do that but we hit it pretty good."

-credit: twr