FUNNY CAR

Wilkerson joined the Ford Funny Car contingent this year. (Steve Gruenwald photo)

Tim Wilkerson brought out a brand new 2010 Levi, Ray & Shoup Shelby Mustang in Gainesville, and under that sleek beautiful body he placed a reinvented version of his 2008 chassis, featuring a new front half. This combination worked like a charm. At the end of the weekend, under sunny skies in Florida, Wilkerson and his LRS team had vanquished Jeff Arend, Matt Hagan, Tony Pedregon, and their alliance partner Bob Tasca to take home the Wally in Gator Country.

The 2010 Mustang body has been in the works since last year, but the reemergence of the old 2008 chassis now seems like a brilliant strategy.  That car ran "easier" according to Wilkerson, and despite the fact it was involved in Daniel Wilkerson's spectacular 2009 crash in Memphis, it was repaired and brought back to do battle just three races into the 2010 season.

"That car just loves to run right down the track, and when we found out it could be front-halved and saved, we sent it off to be fixed," Wilkerson said.  "We brought it out here without a run on it, and man the thing just fell back in love with me like 2008.  Boom, right down the track.  It's a joy to tune, it's really forgiving, and it obviously hasn't lost its magic, if you know what I mean.  I love this car."

To get to this point, Wilkerson went three-for-three during qualifying (one session was rained out on Friday) including the maiden voyage of this new chassis/body package on Friday afternoon.  In succession, he posted a 4.136, then a 4.128, followed by a 4.114 to land 9th on the chart with an ever-improving race car.  As soon as the ladder was produced, the first thing the LRS team noted was that Tasca and Wilkerson were on opposite sides of the grid, and confident talk about meeting in the finals was soon spreading through the side-by-side pit areas.

"Amazing to come out here with all this new stuff and not only get off the mark with our first round win, but go all the way to the final," Wilkerson said.  "And then to meet up with Bob and his team there, well that was just the stuff we've been dreaming about since we joined up at the start of last season.  It took us a year and three races, but we finally both got to a final together.”