If Funny Car racer Bob Gilbertson didn't know any better, he'd think country singer Aaron Tippin's song "Aint Nothing Wrong With the Radio," a song proclaiming the merits of a junker car with a symphonic radio, was written about his Funny Car.

Sometimes she runs, sometimes she don't
More than once she's left me on the side of the road
The older she gets the slower we go
But there ain't nothin' wrong with the radio

She needs a carburetor, a set of plug wires
She's ridin' me around on four bald tires
The wipers don't work and the horn don't blow
But there ain't nothin' wrong with the radio

Now Gilbertson isn't offended if one would call his Funny Car a clunker; he'll readily admit the fuel coupe has clearly seen its better days.

"It’s probably the oldest one, and I know it’s the heaviest one," Gilbertson proclaimed proudly. "It’s been through every fire and blown up but we can’t destroy it because it weighs 300 pounds. It’s got a lot of strength. These older bodies are tough. We’re gonna run her until she falls off."

The battle scars are clearly defined on the 2013 Monte Carlo which has proven to be tougher than the 1958 Plymouth Fury portrayed in the Stephen King thriller Christine.

Beauty is only skin deep for Gilbertson, who represents the difference between a full field and a bye run for the No. 1 qualifier on Sundaym at the NHRA Carolina Nationals. .

"We’re the one-run wonders I guess," Gilbertson said with a smile.

Gilbertson didn't plan it that way. He had every intention of making a qualifying run on Friday, but there was one problem.

"It could end up that way because we haven’t started it," Gilbertson admitted. "We’ve been here since Wednesday at 11 o’clock every night and it ain’t ready to start yet. But we do have about six engines so we’ll pick one of them out that might start. And we’ll be alright, maybe by Saturday."

Gilbertson admits while the thrill isn't completely gone, his passion is quickly waning in trying to bring his nitro relic up to code.

"The expense to come to one race to get the thing legal, that’s been a little bit depressing because a lot of the stuff, when you just pop in here late in the season, there’s an inner diaper now, there’s a back manifold diaper," Gilbertson explained. "We just didn’t pay attention. FedEx loves us; DHL probably loves us. Air freight it in here and get it legal, so we did that all week, and it’s legal. NHRA is happy. Now we just have to make it run."

Who knows what could have become of the trio of Gilbertson and crew chiefs Nicky Bonifante and Tommy Delago had the U.S. economy not tanked in 2008, forcing Gilbertson to park his race team?

"Nicky had already moved on, but the time with us allowed Tommy to get a leg up on his tune-up because we were a 1,000-foot car running in the quarter-mile days," Gilbertson admitted. "We’d run 4.70s coasting through the quarter-mile, so Tommy was way ahead of the game. Just think about it, he had a heavy driver and a heavy car. You don't think that experience helped him when he went over to tune Matt Hagan. They won a championship."

Gilbertson says he won't live on past glory and will instead focus on having fun with what he has now.

"Now that I’m older and fatter, I’ll probably slow down a little bit, but we’ve been having fun," Gilbertson said. "It’s pretty hard not to have fun just to show up here with no pressure on you. That’s what’s fun."

"Hopefully there won't be too big of a fire."