Last Year’s Contender Fights for Consistency in 2009 …

Last season, Tim Wilkerson made winning look so effortless.

This season has been a greater challenge for Wilkerson, which comes as no surprise.

He knew after finishing runner-up for the championship last year, that the expectations would be lofty in 2009.

That’s why Wilkerson’s toughest challenge at present is to find the right balance between a healthy effort and trying too hard. The driver of the Levi, Ray & Shoup Shelby Cobra has finally clawed his way back into the top ten in points.

"One of the real direct things between drag racing and other sports is the tendency to try too hard, and you see that all the time," Wilkerson said. "You can't score a 21-point touchdown, and you can't hit a six-run home run, so trying to get it all back or take over the world in one big shot just doesn't work. I get impatient too, just like anyone, but once we left Pomona we knew we had to focus on doing everything like we've always done it. You just go step by step with everything under control. When you try to do too much, you over-step it and just go backwards.

"Whether it's qualifying or racing on Sunday, you have to be calm about how you're attacking each lap and you can't get too excited about jumping all over one pass, unless you have one of those free shots where you can go ahead and lean on it a little to see what's out there. On Sunday, if you're racing a car that's been faster than you, you still have to race the track. How many times do you see the slower car go up there and instantly smoke the tires, which just hands the round to the other guy? It happens all the time, but we try not to fall into that. We try to just go up there and go as quick and fast as we can, and then hope for the best.  Hopefully, we'll leave the mistakes to the other guys."

Wilkerson opened the 2009 season with an unceremonious DNQ when rain abbreviated qualifying to just one day. He’s since rebounded with impressive consistency in winning the first round in five of the last six events.

At the last two races, in Atlanta and St. Louis, Wilkerson has shown flashes of the same impressive performances of 2008.  He's not been the fastest, nor the quickest, at any event, but he's almost always been one of the most consistent.

"We still do need to get a little faster, because the really tight races against the quickest cars are really a toss-up, at this point," Wilkerson said. "We went up there to race Del (Worsham) in the second round at St. Louis, and that race gave us a pretty good idea about where we stand. We were basically dead even, from reaction time to the finish line, but we lost and Del went on to win the race.  We don't want to change the approach at all, we just need to find a little more in terms of speed and e.t., and then some of those laps might start to fall our way, one after another.

"We could've gone up there against Del and tried to make a big jump, maybe trying to pick up three or four hundredths thinking we needed to be heroes, but that probably wouldn't have worked.  We just went up there to make our best lap, and it was a great race that just happened to go the other way. Now, if we just keep pecking away at it and pick up just a little, we could do some damage out here."

Wilkerson isn’t busy counting points. He knows the time points will count the most is when the tour rolls into Indianapolis for the annual NHRA U.S. Nationals. That’s the cutoff race for the Countdown to the Championship.

"Yeah, you really can't get too hung up on it right now," Wilkerson said. "You can drive yourself nuts, and probably get off your game a little, if you let the points deal eat you up. If we have a good weekend in Bristol, we'll probably move up a little higher, but if things don't go our way we'll probably fall back out of the Top 10. We still have 11 races to go, before the Countdown, so we have to approach the points exactly the same way we approach every lap.  We'll just stay with the program, try to get better, and try not to pay attention to the other stuff.  It will all sort itself out." 

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