It is great to see my friend get to the final at Bristol, TN
It wasn't a perfect weekend for Tim Wilkerson, but it was good enough to propel the Ford Funny Car driver prominently back into the fight for the 2014 NHRA Mello Yello Championship.
After posting career best numbers during Friday qualifying for the 14th annual Ford Thunder Valley Nationals (4.013 seconds at 317.72 miles per hour), Wilkerson showed off his hot weather tuning skills Sunday before his Levi, Ray and Shoup Mustang dropped a couple of cylinders and fell back in a final round loss to the Dodge of Tommy Johnson Jr.
It was the versatile 53-year-old's first final round appearance in more than a year and it put him back in the Top 10 in Mello Yello Series points at a time when jostling for positions in the NHRA's Countdown to the Champion has begun to intensify. Wilkerson, who started the day 11th, moved up to ninth and within three racing rounds (60 points) of fifth.
"We were fighting some ignition issues a little bit all day," acknowledged the 17-time tour winner. "We started it up a couple of times (leading up to the final round) and finally just ran out of time. We saw something when we got up there and made an adjustment, but it still went out and dropped not one, but two cylinders at once on the left side.
"The car will make a move when you drop a hole (like that)," he said, "but dropping two practically makes it take a left turn and it was either lift - or hit the wall."
Despite the improved results, Wilkerson couldn't hide his disappointment after losing in the final round for the second time in the last five years at Thunder Valley and, in the process, failing to bring to an end a winless streak that now has reached 67 races. The owner, crew chief and driver of the L-R-S Mustang last won at tour event on August 7, 2011 at Seattle, Wash
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