If misery loves company, then Larry Dixon’s failure to qualify has company in Tim Wilkerson.

Dixon, in his national event debut for Alan Johnson Al-Anabi Racing, missed the sixteen-car field at the NHRA Kragen O'Reilly Winternationals when he shook the tires, leading to a broken ignition. This marked the former world champions first DNQ since 2006.

“To say we’re disappointed might be the biggest understatement ever,” Dixon said. “Sheik Khalid was here and we really wanted to put on a good show for him. We came to Pomona with the same high expectations as everyone else, but sometimes parts break; there’s nothing we could have done differently. It’s unfortunate, but NHRA awards the same number of points at Phoenix, and we’ll be ready to go.” If misery loves company, then Larry Dixon’s failure to qualify has company in Tim Wilkerson.

Dixon, in his national event debut for Alan Johnson Al-Anabi Racing, missed the sixteen-car field at the NHRA Kragen O'Reilly Winternationals when he shook the tires, leading to a broken ignition. This marked the former world champions first DNQ since 2006.

“To say we’re disappointed might be the biggest understatement ever,” Dixon said. “Sheik Khalid was here and we really wanted to put on a good show for him. We came to Pomona with the same high expectations as everyone else, but sometimes parts break; there’s nothing we could have done differently. It’s unfortunate, but NHRA awards the same number of points at Phoenix, and we’ll be ready to go.”

Just one race after finishing runner-up for the Funny Car championship, Wilkerson opened his season by ending up in the No. 17 qualifying position.

"You name it and it went pretty much wrong for us here, from the weather to some stuff on the car," Wilkerson said. "We had the air line that runs the timer system fail on us, but we couldn't see that or even know it before the run. There was really no way to know it wasn't functional until I hit the throttle, and man the car was just strange. I pedaled it real quick, and it hooked up and was going, but the motor was zinging, just screaming out there. At the same time, it was really obvious the car just wasn't running, so I finally lifted quite a bit early because nothing good was going to happen with the motor running away like that. At the time, it had turned into a pretty nice afternoon and nobody was really thinking about not getting the second run in, so my biggest worry was the fact we were going to have to be heroes on the last pass to get it into the field.

"On top of all that, my visor fogged up on me and I could barely see. So, I've got a car that's obviously hurt or broken, and I can't see. That's a bad combination, so my instinct was to save the car and maybe me, for the last run. Then, we get back here and service the car and that's all going along great, when we notice this big black cloud coming over. There was blue sky all around it, but man it found the race track like a magnet. A few little drops turned into a steady rain, then a shower, and that was it.”

Wilkerson's aborted run was a 5.141, which missed the field by 8-hundredths of a second.