Sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than good.

Tim Wilkerson will be the first person to tell you that he didn’t have the fastest car on Sunday, but he did have consistency. And that, sprinkled with a little bit of luck, is sometimes all you need to be victorious.

Wilkerson survived and advanced four times on Sunday, placing his SCAG Power Equipment/Okuma Ford Mustang Funny Car in the winner’s circle for the first time this season. His win at the Gerber Collision & Glass Route 66 Nationals presented by PEAK Performance at Route 66 Raceway, was his first since Charlotte in 2021.

The 2022 season was a hard pill to swallow for KB Racing.

The Pro Stock powerhouse team watched as rival Elite Motorsports dominated the class culminating with Erica Enders winning her fifth world championship.

KB Racing made changes late in the 2022 campaign to try and recapture its glory.

Earlier this season, Richard Freeman made laps in a Mountain Motor Pro Stock car and was critical, albeit in jest of his performance. 

“Yeah, I’m still not worth a s***, but it’s OK,” Freeman said. 

Freeman, who began his Pro Stock driving career in the large displacement Pro Stockers back in the IHRA days, apparently got better... a lot better. The owner of Elite Performance drove to the win at the season-opening Mountain Motor Pro Stock event during the Gerber Collision & Glass NHRA Route 66 Nationals presented by PEAK Performance, stopping John Montecalvo in the final round. 

 
Top Fuel veteran Clay Millican powered to his first win in five years, claiming the victory over Josh Hart on Sunday in the final round of the Gerber Collision & Glass NHRA Route 66 Nationals presented by PEAK Performance at Route 66 Raceway.

Tim Wilkerson (Funny Car) Dallas Glenn (Pro Stock) and Gaige Herrera (Pro Stock Motorcycle) also won at the sixth of 21 races during the 2023 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series season. It was also NHRA’s first race at Chicago’s Route 66 Raceway since 2019.

Millican delivered a run of 3.801-seconds at 328.94 mph in his 11,000-horsepower Parts Plus/Rick Ware Racing dragster to slip past Hart’s 3.808 at 324.28, handing the driver his first victory since 2018, which also took place in Chicago, and Rick Ware Racing its first NHRA win. It’s the fourth career win for Millican, who entered the weekend without a round win in 2023 but knocked off Shawn Langdon, Doug Kalitta and defending world champ Brittany Force to reach the final round.

Bob Tasca III’s Friday night qualifying run at the NHRA Route 66 Nationals was disqualified because of a malfunction with one of the body latches on his Motorcraft/QuickLane Ford Mustang, forcing him to scramble Saturday to make the Funny Car field of 16.

The newly minted Maynard Ashley Racing team won’t look any different, really, on the racetrack.

However, news Saturday that Max Out Motorsports (formerly Justin Ashley Racing & Davis Motorsports) and JCM Racing merged to form Maynard Ashley Racing will have ramifications more on the business side of the operation.

This new organization – separate from Maynard Wilkerson Racing in Funny Car and JCM on the Top Fuel side with Tony Schumacher – will campaign the Phillips Connect Toyota Dragster that Justin Ashley drives and Mike Green and Tommy DeLago tune. The move is immediate.

He's been knocking on the door all weekend, and a day of calamity and race delays provided Comp racer Ed Federkell the opportunity to "bust it down" and drive his way to the No. 1 spot at the second Texas Motorplex NHRA Division 4 LODRS event of the weekend. 

Federkell drove his David Nickens-powered 2012 Dodge Avenger to a 7.181 elapsed time, -.689 under the B/Altered planetary. 

"The conditions were a lot better for the final session than they were in the daytime," Federkell said. "It was definitely instrumental in the performance of the car. We weren't trying to make that run, but the car just did it. Hopefully, on Sunday, I will drive good on both ends of the track, and we can go some rounds."

Comp racer Mike DePalma has been a win waiting to happen in the Rooftec Competition Eliminator Bonus Fund program this season. Saturday, after Friday's first race was rained out, DePalma sealed the deal on Saturday morning by becoming the fourth different winner in Competition Eliminator during the 2023 NHRA Division 4 double event at the Texas Motorplex. 

If the Lee Sharp-owned team ever needed a win, today was a bold move in the right direction. 

"Winning the race always leaves you feeling good," DePalma said. "We had a lot of problems with our second car. It blew an engine up, and it wore about five guys out trying to get it back together, and this other one, we've been pulling the transmission out and working on that thing like crazy, so I think we finally got it squared away."

Welcome to the big leagues, Camrie Caruso.

Fresh off of a Rookie of the Year award in 2022 and her first career major league victory earlier this year in Phoenix, Caruso etched her name into the record books once more Saturday with a victory at the first NHRA Pro Stock All-Star Callout at Route 66 Raceway.

A specialty race paired alongside the Gerber Collision & Glass Route 66 Nationals presented by PEAK Performance at the Chicago-area facility, Caruso survived three rounds against the best in the business to earn her first specialty race win and a hefty payout. Meanwhile, Dallas Glenn was the quickest in the class this weekend, earning his first top qualifier award of the season and the third of his career entering Sunday's eliminations.