Drag Illustrated Issue 113, September 2016 | Page 46

TIM WILKERSON and how things get done. When I don’t have to stand out there and stare at the motor, it’s a big deal. The guys I had before did a great job, too, but he’s really made a big difference on how our car performs. He’s conscientious and he cares and you just can’t teach that; you can’t teach caring, you know? Somebody can want to do it and want to learn and want to go, but you can’t teach them to care. You also had a couple scary moments this year in Topeka and in Denver, which is a big sponsor race for you. Have you figured out what the issue was? Yeah, we know exactly what happened. We’re over that now. We narrowed it down to one thing and it was purely self-induced, not a mechanical problem, it wasn’t the rear end like everyone thinks it was or a broken axle. We’ve got it fixed. In 2008, you were on an amazing streak and it looked as though you were going to walk away with the Funny Car championship. In the end, though, Cruz Pedregon won the title. Is there any resentment over the fact you would’ve won the title had NHRA stayed with the original points system and not moved to the Countdown to the Championship? Nah, there’s no resentment. I had my chance; I blew it. We had absolutely no luck the last three races of the season. I mean, people gave Cruz races, one after another and I didn’t do my job and win races. We had a malfunction in the car at Virginia. In the second or third round, I raced Cruz and he beat me there and that was kind of a turning point where things just didn’t go good for us. We got greedy first round at Vegas and got beat there and Cruz went on to win the race with people red-lighting against him and him smoking the tires. It was just bad luck. And no discredit to them. Him and (Rahn) Tobler, they ran right when they needed to. We get to Pomona and John Force and I red light first round. I had an .026 red light and John had an .024. (John Force Racing crew chief Austin) Coil calls me up and says, ‘C’mon, we’re going to the tower! There’s no way that happened! They had a malfunction with those lights and we’re gonna’ straighten this out right now!’ About that time, they were putting the crown on Cruz’s head. I said, ‘I don’t know how we’re going to pry that crown off Cruz’s head. It’s gonna’ be too late.’ But Coil was adamant that there was a malfunction in the timing lights that day because there’s no way John and I could be that close and both of us an .87 slow. We’re seeing the backlash from that. I have enough of those discs saved up for the Countdown. I’m hoping when I get back to the Countdown that I can run in the middle with the rest of them. I still have the fastest speed in the middle ever recorded, which we’re very proud of. Did you ever really think drag racing would be your life’s work? red light. But it doesn’t really make any difference, we lost it before we got there and it was our fault. One, did you ever think we would see ETs like we’ve seen in Funny Car this year, and two, when does it end? (At the time of writing, the Funny Car ET record was 3.822 seconds, set by Matt Hagan at Brainerd.) Yeah, it’s pretty close to ending. The rev limiter they’ve stuck on there isn’t going to go much faster than that. We’re trying to make our ET early now. We actually changed the clutch disc in our car right after Topeka and that’s what slowed our car down in the middle, if you want to call Oh, wow, I always loved drag racing, but I never really knew I could do this for the rest of my life. We had some small sponsorships back in the early ‘90s with the alcohol car through NAPA Auto Parts and when we had an opportunity to go fuel racing I never really thought we could find a sponsor that would be good enough. Since we have, and we’ve been with Mr. (Dick) Levi and Levi, Ray, and Shoup now for 16 years, that’s quite a long time to be with one sponsor, so I’m very thankful for that. I’ll be truthful with you; I never really thought I’d be able to do this for the rest of my life. I’m blessed. DI DI DI DI DI DI DI DI DI DI 46 | D r a g I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com Issue 113 PHOTO: NHRA / NATIONAL DRAGSTER Dirt