Nitro Dogs Racing

Las Vegas, pre-race:  Springfield, Ill., favorite, Tim Wilkerson has been on the top of the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Funny Car points for more races than not.  And going into the two remaining races in the Countdown to 1 in the lead, is a highlight in Wilkerson’s phenomenal storybook year.

Wilkerson is a so-called independent; a single car team with an average budget battling a world of multi-car teams with mega dollar budgets.  He works with less crew members than most and the most astonishing feature is that Wilkerson owns the team, drives the 8,000 horsepower monster machine and is his own crew-chief.  He is the only full-time Funny Car in NHRA POWERade Drag Racing arena that operates this way and yet every race weekend, Wilk and his talented team take on the giants in the Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevrolet Impala SS and still they keep coming out on top.  And Wilkerson plans to keep his momentum going through to the very end.

“We’re trying not to watch what the rest of the teams in the Top 10 are doing,” said Wilkerson.  “But it’s hard not to worry about them.  We know they’re back there and are breathing down our necks.  We just can’t let them affect our decision making.  We need to try to just do our own deal and whatever happens - happens. That’s what we’ve done all year.  So, we’re going to run as hard as we can.  I know we haven’t qualified as well as we had been the last four or five races.  But if you look at the qualifying shows, like the last race, we ran a 4.079. There were five 4.07’s and we were the slowest.  We really didn’t qualify that bad.  It just didn’t look that good on the piece of paper.

“It’s been an exciting year. There’s no doubt about that.  And now we’re just going to keep our nose down and hopefully we can get some help from some of the other cars, by taking one of those other hot dogs out before we have to get to them.  As my grandma used to say, ‘the proof of the pudding is in the tasting’.  That’s our deal.  We have a good car. I think we’ve proven that through the year.  Not to beat our chests, I don’t do a lot of that. You know me; I’m not a guy who beats my chest about how good we are.  I do have a terrific group of guys.  They’ve made my car good.  They’ve allowed me to make runs with me being the guy that has to make a mistake.  And that’s how we’ve won races this year.  We’ve just had an extremely good, consistent car.  As I’ve said in the past, my driving is probably the weakest part of it.  But we’re proud to be in the position we’re in.”

There was a welcomed few weeks off before the team headed off to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the ACDELCO Las Vegas Nationals, quickly followed by the season finale at the Auto Club Raceway at

Pomona.  And even though Wilkerson would rather be racing, he took advantage of the time to get his men and his machine ready for the battle ahead.

“We went over everything with everybody during our time off,” explained Wilkerson, “and made sure there’s no mistakes, that everything is happening correctly and that the car is prepared as well as it can.  We got nicked (15 points) for an oil-down deal at

Memphis.  We need to make sure that little stuff like that don’t bite us in the butt so we can continue on our path and hopefully we can be the champion when we’re finished.

“We did need a little bit of time to get our junk back in the pile, there’s no doubt about that.  We’ve been fixing cylinder heads the last couple weeks and trying to get enough motors in the trailer to go to the next couple races so we’ll have enough to finish fighting this battle to the end.  And I gave the guys a little bit of time off.  They need a breather every once in a while.  I know they need to take care of their home life.  Now as for me, I’d go racing every day if I could.  As a matter of fact my kid, Daniel and I went bracket racing every weekend.  We haven’t stopped racing; we just stopped racing the Funny Car.”

Wilkerson has captured six wins so far this season, one more than he had in the previous 12 years of his Funny Car career.  The admitted Cinderella season makes Wilkerson happy, happy for everyone supporting him in his stunning success.

“It has been a Cinderella season and no matter what happens I will be so happy for my guys and my sponsors,” said Wilkerson.  “You know, everyone said we wouldn’t hold on to the lead in the Countdown to 1 because we couldn’t handle the pressure.  Well, little did they know that made us more determined.  The pressure isn’t getting in our way.  Things have just worked for us all year, while some of the others have faltered.  That’s just the way it’s going to be.  Sometimes you’re the bug and sometimes you’re the windshield.

“I like to think that we were this good a team before; we just didn’t quite have the opportunities and resources.  Dick Levi stepped up and gave us more money than we ever had this year.  And our alliance with Don Prudhomme has given us the opportunity to use some equipment we really didn’t have available to us before.  I just think it shows you with the right amount of money, the right amount of perseverance, any team out there can do it.  Fortunately this year we get to be the team going into the last couple races ahead of the pack.”

Technicoat, Kalitta Motorsports extend partnership through 2013

Technicoat Cos., a worldwide leader in industrial waterproofing and flooring, and Ypsilanti, Mich.-based Kalitta Motorsports will extend their long-running and greatly successful partnership for an additional five years.

Technicoat Cos. will continue its support of Kalitta Motorsports’ NHRA Professional drag racing team as a major associate sponsor on the Top Fuel dragsters driven by Doug Kalitta and Dave Grubnic and on the Ken Black-owned, Kalitta Motorsports-managed Top Fueler driven by Hillary Will. Technicoat will also continue to have major associate signage on the Team Kalitta Funny Car driven by Jeff Arend.

Technicoat Cos., based in Las Vegas and

Westminster, Calif., specializes in high-tech performance coatings and floorings, wearing surfaces for pedestrian traffic and vehicular traffic, as well as new and existing roofs. Technicoat President Bob Coffman and COO Glen Williams, aka “the Cowboys,” are fixtures in the Team Kalitta pit area at most NHRA national events with their trademark cowboy hats. Technicoat Cos. and Kalitta Motorsports began their marketing partnership near the end of the 2002 NHRA season.

“Kalitta Motorsports is not just a race team to us; they’re our family,” Coffman said. “We’ve not only been able to garner tremendous exposure for our company over the past several years, but we’ve also developed a kinship with Connie [Kalitta, team owner and drag racing legend] and Jim “O” [Oberhofer, Kalitta Motorsports general manager and crew chief for Will] and everyone on the team. It’s been a great ride so far, and we’re very excited about what our future holds together.”

“Our relationship with Technicoat and ‘the Cowboys’ has been great from day one,” Oberhofer said. “Those guys are great. They come to a lot of events, and there’s always a good time waiting to happen around them. Their support and loyalty both professionally and personally to our team is immeasurable. We’re really looking forward to having ‘the Cowboys’ and everyone at Technicoat onboard with our program for another five years.”

Leading rookies Neff, Tasca reflect on their first Funny Car seasons

Mike Neff, driver of the Old Spice Ford Mustang, and Bob Tasca III, driver of the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Shelby Mustang, are two of the five nominees for Automobile Club of Southern California Road to the Future award as the season’s top rookie. With only two races remaining in their first seasons, Neff and Tasca talked with This Week in Ford Racing about the challenges they’ve faced this season and what each of them has learned.

Q: Mike, tell us about your thoughts on being under consideration for rookie of the year.
Neff: I would be very honored and proud to accomplish that. That’s a great award. Robert [Hight] has won it and Ashley [Force] has won it. I just think it’s a neat accomplishment if that would be something that we could do. I look at it that it’s a team effort, so it’s not just about me but it’s about the team. I feel like the team has as much to do with it as I do, really. A lot of it is based off of performance, and that’s what makes you look good and get good results. So, I would be really honored and happy for all of us if we were able to accomplish that.

Q: During that first year, is there a point when you stop considering yourself a rookie?
Neff: “I’m definitely pretty comfortable now in the car in a lot of areas, as far as being able to have a good vision of where I’m going. For a long time it seemed like one big blur, you know? So, things have kind of slowed down. I’ve been able to get a better visual of the groove and feel like, as far as knowing where the car’s at in the groove, I feel a lot better about that. There were times in the beginning where I’d hit the gas and it would go down there and I’d lift and wouldn’t be able to tell you if I was in the middle of the groove or if I was on the inside of it or the outside of it. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you where I was at. It just happened so fast and was just a blur to me, so I feel good about getting comfortable with that. But I do kind of feel like I’ve been doing this long enough that I don’t really consider myself a rookie.

I’ve made enough races, and now it’s time that I need to be concentrating on being a better driver – having better reaction times, and just fine-tuning to be smooth and start concentrating on those areas, when in the beginning I wasn’t worried about reaction times. All of my thoughts were when I hit the gas I need to make sure I can keep this thing straight and be ready for what’s going to happen. I’ve experienced enough stuff – a fire, a cylinder out, smoking the tires, shaking – now that I’ve experienced enough things, I’m more comfortable, not up there wondering what’s going to happen.”

Q: With all of the plusses and minuses, can you put this season into perspective? You made the Countdown.
A: Yeah, I am happy with making the Countdown. That’s definitely an accomplishment. There were a lot of good cars that were out there last year that didn’t make it this year. So, I’m definitely pleased with that – making the Countdown. Although, I must tell you, at the beginning of the year, with the team and John Medlen and everybody, I would’ve expected us to. It’s not like I’m shocked that we made it, I kind of always had high expectations for us, so I honestly thought that we should be able to do that. I’m not trying to be arrogant; if you look at the past history of John Medlen and Eric [Medlen] and Robert, even though these guys were first-year drivers, they all did really well here at John Force Racing. So, I expected us to do good.

My disappointments? I’m disappointed we don’t have that first win. I really felt like, one, in particular,

Bristol, that should’ve been a win right there, our first win. So, that really hurts, the fact that we let that one slip by, because I don’t like carrying that monkey around on your back, you know, ‘When are you going to get your first win?’ You know, we should’ve already had it. That would’ve been a big thing for us, if we would’ve been able to do that then. So, I really want to get that first win. I think that’s a really major focus right now at this point, is getting that over with.”

Q: You had another very good qualifying effort in Virginia, tying for the fastest 1,000-foot time ever. Is there a difference between running of Fridays and running on Sundays?
Neff: Yes. Honestly, there is. Fridays are very important – every day, every run is important now, but things have changed over these last few years that Friday, you get that night run or that late session, well, that sets that top 12, you definitely want to try to be in that. Friday, the first run, you want to make sure you go down the race track and get something to look at it, in a perfect world, you make a good, solid run. Okay, now everything looks good, now we can be a little more aggressive and try to run good. What happens if you don’t make a good run, that first one, now you’re a little on the defense for Friday night. You can’t get too carried away because you need to make sure you go down the track. That puts you at a disadvantage to qualify up in the top of the pack, somewhat.

Saturday’s turned into if you’re not in that top 12, you’re trying to outdo the rest of the guys who are trying to get those spots, and usually, at that point, you end up having to race a top-qualifying car, so you’re just at a disadvantage all weekend, and that makes Sunday real tough. So, Fridays have become really important, especially with this. They always have, with that night run, but now especially now with the way they’re structured it, it’s critical.”

Q: You’re in the middle of a couple of weekends off before the season closes. has it been a long year for you? Are you welcoming the break right now?
Neff: I’m really glad to have some time off. It has been busy, and we’ve been gone a lot. You get to this point of the year and everybody wears down, the crew is tired. So, it’s nice being able to be at home and be with the kids and family and just take a little breather and catch up on some home-life stuff that you’ve been missing out on and get a second wind. This is my favorite time of the year, going to Vegas and then going to

Pomona, these are my two favorite races of the year, knowing that you’re just winding the season down and everything is at stake. I love Vegas, that’s a great track, and being that I’m from

California, it’s always nice to go there and see my friends and my family there. So, I’m really looking forward to these last two weeks.”

Q: You mentioned getting that first win. Is that the 100-percent focus for the final two races of the year?
Neff: Yes, definitely. We want to win one of those things and get that over with. We’ve been close a few times and haven’t gotten it. The car has run good all year. We’ve been a little hit-and-miss, a little inconsistent at times, but the performance is there and John Medlen had the thing really running last weekend, and that Ford BOSS 500 motor, that thing is looking fantastic. The power that it makes is better than what we had before. That thing has been a real nice thing to have. With all of that, if we get a little consistency, and I think we’ve got a good shot at doing it, to be honest with you.”

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Q: Bob, You’re almost at the end of your rookie season, and two of the top candidates for rookie-of-the-year are ford drivers with you and Mike Neff.
Tasca: The good news is that a Ford driver is going to win Rookie of the Year. Obviously, Mike and I come from two very different perspectives. I’m extremely proud of my team and the whole program because November 1 of last year we didn’t have an employee and we didn’t own a part. It was something that we started from scratch. And for that, when you reflect on that and the business plan that we built around this 300-mile-per-hour billboard, is pretty phenomenal.

With the training of Quick Lane dealers on the advantages of Motorcraft parts and different selling techniques, along with the awards-based contest that we’ve put together for Motorcraft distributors and vendors and dealers, and then couple that with the great charitable program we did this season with the JDRF and juvenile diabetes, and then with the midway. We’ve not only connected with fans out on the race track, we’ve connected with them in the pit with the Motorcraft Hole Shot Challenge, the Quick Lane pit crew challenge and the Custom Accessories display area, along with the business program that compliments this race car. It’s an awful lot to take in. You look back and it’s a blur, literally, for me.

But certainly we’re focused on closing this year out. We have two races and we’re still searching for our first win, both me and Mike. Hopefully, one of us grabs a couple of wins here before the end of the season for Ford and for our Rookie-of-the-Year bio; it’d be nice to have a win in it for sure. And then it’s about looking at next year. As a rookie, my off-season is going to really be dynamically different this season as it was last season. We’re going to be testing. We test three days after

Pomona, so talk about having a leg up on the 2009 season. We’ve got a big test session planned in Vegas on the way back from the West Coast, and a lot of moves that we’ve made approaching this off season here. We’ve got Marc Denner joining our team [as assistant crew chief], and we’ve got some good things coming out this season. From a planning and strategy point, we’re already planning for the 2009 year.

It’s been a great year for us. It’s been a huge learning curve in multiple areas from the chassis that was thrown at us, the no testing ban that was put on, a new driver – I’ve got experience in an alcohol car, but it’s completely different when you compare the two for driving characteristics. They’re similar in some ways, but they’re polar opposite in a lot of ways. So it’s been challenging. I think that’s probably a word that can sum up our year. It’s been challenging. We’ve had a lot of highs, we’ve had some lows. But it’s been a great year to build a foundation under our program. And when you compare our success as a first-year team starting from scratch, we’ve done an amazing job. I mean you can go back a couple years and not find a team that has performed as well as our team has, through the course of a season, starting with nothing on Nov. 1. So for that, I’m proud of the guys [on the team], led by Chris Cunningham, for the race car that they give us.

From a business standpoint, I’m a little biased, but I don’t think there is a program on the whole circuit that rivals our business activation plan. And that’s a tremendous thing to accomplish in your first year. It’s been an exciting year; it’s almost been a blur. I can tell you that I’m really, really looking forward to 2009. We’ve got a little work to do here in 2008, and we’re going to strive for our first win. But I think it’s been a great year to spring off into 2009.

Q: You’ve talked about your rookie season before, saying that you wouldn’t want to relive your first 50 trips down the track with what you’ve been able to learn this season.
Tasca:There is no question about it. It’s almost scary, and I’m not afraid to admit it, but it’s almost scary to think the first 50 hits of the throttle. I mean how do you prepare yourself for getting into one of these cars? I mean, an Alcohol Funny Car is the closest thing that you can do, but it’s nothing after you cross half-track to what this fuel car can do. I think I’m a long way off from being a veteran, but I’m certainly well on my way of really dialing myself in as a driver in this race car, and to look back and just remember things that happened in the car versus when I’m in the car now, it’s amazing how the human mind can speed up and everything slows down. I mean, from rolling into the beam, to hitting the throttle, to feeling the race car go through critical points of the track where it can smoke the tires, it can shake the tires, where it can start to put a hole out and move around, to when you have to get the chutes out. And even being able to tell if one chute hit late, one chute didn’t come out; it’s just amazing how much you can gather in in such a short period of time. And it’s because of seat time.

You gotta get in one of these cars to get good at it and you just have to do it over and over and over again. That’s why a lot of those three-in-a-row stretches, I look forward to. You get time; you get no weekend. This is a two-weekend-off deal for us, and I haven’t done this all year. The last time we had two weekends off, I tested in

Valdosta, so the next time in the car is two weeks off, and that’s a lot of time out of it. The more seat time I can get, the better I’ll become as a driver. And truthfully, the better our team will become, because as much as I learn, Chris learns in the car.

I really feel that that testing ban, on a single-car team with a rookie driver, has really put us at a disadvantage, more so than anything else out there, because you tell a guy that you can’t practice. That’s the worst thing that you can tell a rookie driver with a new team. So what we’ve done is that it’s forced us to practice a little bit here the last couple of races. And fortunately, you learn a lot even if the car doesn’t go down the race track, because we’re gathering data from the hit of the throttle to when I step off of it. But it takes time to come up with our strategy to get one of these cars to go from A to B down the race track.

So, it’s been very challenging, it’s been very rewarding. At the end of the day, I just think that we have a solid team; we’ve got all the key guys coming back for next year and we’re rolling into ‘09 light years ahead of where we were last year.

Schumacher, Wilkerson ride points leads into final two races

Tony Schumacher

Tim Wilkerson

Top Fuel points leader Tony Schumacher and Funny Car frontrunner Tim Wilkerson took part in a national NHRA teleconference to assess their thoughts and plans for the final two events remaining in the six-race NHRA Playoff, the Countdown to 1: the ACDelco Las Vegas NHRA Nationals next weekend and the Auto Club Finals November 13-16 at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona. Q: Tim, you’ve been one of the great stories this year in NHRA if not in all of sports. You’ve won more races this season, six – including two of the four playoff races – than you’d won in your first 12 years of racing. Of course, you’re in the points lead now for the first time in your career as well. Are the last two races business as usual for you, or are you doing a little scoreboard watching, watching what the drivers behind you are doing?
Wilkerson: I’m trying not to watch what they’re doing. Let’s put it that way. I think it’s hard not to. You try to just do your own deal and whatever happens happens. That’s what we’ve done all year. I heard Jeg talk about being on offense. I remember talking with (NAPA crew chief Ed) Ace (McCulloch) and (

NAPA driver Ron) Capps in the past, when they were doing so well. It come down to the last few races, they ended up getting beat by a little bit. I believe that’s exactly what happened to them. They started playing defense. Let’s just run good enough, let’s get in the show.

But we’re not going to do that. We’re going to run as hard as we can. I know we haven’t qualified as well as we had been the last four or five races. But if you look at the qualifying shows, like the last race, we run (a 4.079). There were five (4.07s) and we were the slowest .07. We really didn’t qualify that bad. It just didn’t look that good on the piece of paper.

It’s been an exciting year. There’s no doubt about that. We’re just going to keep our nose down and hopefully we can get some help from some of the other cars, take one of those other hot dogs out before I have to get to them.

Q: Tony, to clinch your fifth straight and sixth overall championship is qualify at

Las Vegas. Talk about this record-setting season and the bigger picture, which is with the six POWERade Series championships, you would join Kenny Bernstein, Warren Johnson and Dave Schultz for third place on the all-time NHRA career championships list.
Schumacher: I think it’s truly unbelievable. Just being in the position to win five in a row, it’s a blessing. We’ve probably assembled the greatest team, and I know there’s other records out there that are a little better. Greg Anderson winning 15 in a season. I’m sure they had a wonderful team. This team is just absolutely dynamite. They’ve done things and won races when we weren’t running a 10th of a second ahead over and over again. They’re good quality, hard-working people with good morals. It’s just been so fantastic to get buckled in that car knowing that these guys built it and go after these records. The records just kept falling this year.

It’s been great. That’s a great list to be on. With our team breaking up at the end of the year (crew chief Alan Johnson is leaving to form his own Top Fuel and Funny Car teams), we’re trying to get every bit out that we can. We’d like to win the next two races and set the bar so high that it’s impossible to break. I mean, the records we broke this year, I’m sure years ago people thought were impossible to break, too. That’s what records are meant for. In junior dragsters, there are people that are going to be setting their sights on these records we’re setting right now. There will be different crew chiefs and teams. Just want to set that bar awful high.

Q. Tim, when you got your first win of the season here in April, you said you might have had an advantage because your car was always one of the heaviest, and with the added weight, it didn’t affect you as much. Five wins later, what is your excuse?
Wilkerson: Well, I think the word “excuse” was what the other guys were using (laughter). The word “reason” is what I’m trying to use. I appreciate that. At that time it my have been a good reason and excuse for the rest of them. Hundreds of runs later, I think they’ve used that one up a little too long.

Now, I think you’re right. As my grandma used to say, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting. That’s our deal. We have a good car. I think we’ve proven that through the year here. Not to beat our chests, I don’t do a lot of that. You guys know me, I’m not a guy who beats my chest about how good we are. I do have a terrific group of guys. They’ve made my car good. They’ve allowed me to make runs with me being the guy that has to make a mistake. And that’s how we’ve won races this year.

We’ve just had an extremely good, consistent car. As I’ve said in the past, my driving’s probably the weakest part of it. But we’re proud to be in the position we’re in.

Q. Are there any advantages to being a one-car team? Everybody talks about the multi-car teams out there having a big advantage. You’ve kind of destroyed that.
Wilkerson: I think the only advantage we have to being a one-car team is we don’t get lost in all the mumbo-jumbo. We’re a smaller circus than the Schumachers or the Forces. We don’t have all the politics of four crew chiefs. We don’t have 20 blowers to pick from. We don’t have all the five different sponsors. This one didn’t quite get taken care of. You know what I mean? I know that sounds facetious, bass-akwards, but it’s not. That stuff goes on. I think people that have all those cars know that. Force has asked me a hundred times how come I can whoop him this year. I don’t really know what the answer is totally, but I believe that having a single-car team, sometimes you can focus on your car and the few sponsors that you have, and you can take better care of them because you don’t have all the politics. You know what I mean? I know sometimes with multi-car teams, there’s some clashing that goes on in the different crew chiefs. It’s just the way it is. That’s the way it happens.

I think if I only had four dragsters instead of two, he would see some of that, too. That’s just part of it, in my opinion.

Q. Tim, you mentioned Team Force. I think your record against Force cars is 15-5 this year. Twice you’ve beaten three of them to get to a title. Is some of that motivation, if not for you, for the crew?
Wilkerson: Oh, yeah. Of course, it is. Nothing worse than seeing one of them guys first round. That’s happened to us a couple times where, you know, we took them a little lightly there at

Charlotte and then lately we haven’t.

But they’re, of course, great motivation. I guess you hit the nail on the head. When you have to race that caliber of organization, and to go up there and even think you could run with them first off, and second off that you can even imagine to beat them, would be a feather in anybody’s hat. For us to have done that a couple times this year, yeah, my guys, they strut around like some peacocks over there when that happened. But that’s good. That’s good for them. Because I’ve always said, everybody out here needs to win a race. I mean, the crew’s whole atmosphere is based around how the car runs. Their attitude is based on the ET slip. When you can have a crew that does well, Tony even hit on that, his guys do such a terrific job with their car, it seems like the better the car runs, the better job they do. I don’t know if it’s psychological for the crew chief to believe that, but I believe it. I see it in my guys. When our car runs bad, they’re pissy-acting, they’re not having fun. It’s not the same. When things go well, I get them all together and say, ‘See, this is what we can do. When you guys pay attention to your job, let me be the guy that makes the mistake, this is what we can do.’ We have been fortunate enough to get that job done a few times this year.

Q. Tim with your hometown of

Springfield giving you a day of honor, if you win this championship, are they going to give you a key to the city?
Wilkerson: That would be good. I asked them if I could renege everyone’s real estate taxes for one day. They told me they wouldn’t let me be the guy of the day if I ever asked that again. We just had another kid, Justin Allgaier, win the Nationwide championship here in town. Now the pressure’s on me to bring the Funny Car title home to

Springfield. Hopefully we can get that done. That would be fun, though. I think it would be a good day for all of us.

Q. Tony, as you get closer to clinching the title, have you had a chance to really comprehend all the history that you’re about to make this season? There’s more records than we can probably think of. Have you really got your arm around all this?
Schumacher: I really have sat back kind of this week and really soaked it up. Especially because (Alan Johnson) is leaving next year, you got to look at it as we’re going to have a different team. Neither side of this team, mine or A.J.’s going in our own directions, is ever going to have this chance again. This really was just a perfect season. A lot of great things happened. Even when everything wasn’t perfect, somebody else would make a mistake against us. So the records are just enormous.

And, yeah, I’ve really sat back and said, even before some of the finals the last couple races, you know, I’d tell the guys, Now is the time to stop and smell the roses. What’s going to happen in the next 10 minutes, going out and trying to win this race, the outcome, don’t let that define the season. The season’s been so fantastic. We got into every minute of it. I think I told you at the last race, it’s like the ‘80 Olympics, when those guys were done with the Olympics, beating the Russian team in hockey, they never saw each other again. They all went their own ways and did their own deals. But they always have that time. It was such a big time, big for everybody.

I don’t think what we do changes the world in any way, shape or form, except the world of drag racing. The fans that got to witness it this year, the teams that got beat, our team that had a chance to be part of it. Even Cory (McClenathan’s) team, my teammate, had to watch it from within, it was awesome for everybody.

I have truly woken up every day and felt blessed. I’ve also woken up every day and thought there is so much pressure. I’m sure Tim (Wilkerson) can feel it right now. When you got the team that everyone’s watching, everyone’s trying to beat, they’re going to do everything they can to beat you, the pressure is just flat enormous. The more races you win, the more pressure’s on you. So I felt like I have gotten through a very difficult season this year.

I look back and I think they took 550 points away (with the points reset at the start of the six-race playoff, the Countdown to 1). I thought, man, we’d set every record. If we can’t finish these last six races, we can’t close the deal. Yes, the rules are the rules. I’m going to walk over and shake whoever’s hand that wins it. But, man, what would we be giving up. The pressure was just brutal. With pressure and with the hardships that you’ve got to get through comes the pleasures. The more you win, the more difficult it is to keep going. When you think how are we going to win seven in a row, how are we going to win six in a row, Indy, all these big races. When you pull off these huge miracles, it’s fantastic. It makes it that much better.

Q. Speaking of that next phase, when A.J. (Alan Johnson) leaves, that might open up the division, level the playing field. How do you anticipate that kind of thing going? Do you think it’s going to be a lot tougher?
Schumacher: I think it’s just going to be different. Oh, yeah. I’ll tell you, in 1999 with

Dan Olson, we won a championship. We won one race. We beat A.J. and we beat Scelzi. It was difficult. Then A.J. comes over and we won nine races, 10 races. The last two seasons, last run of the year, I have had the pleasure of winning championships many different ways. When I heard A.J. was leaving, I thought okay, all right, brutal. I love working with the guy. He’s a great crew chief, best there’s ever been. But there’s much more to a program than just that one guy. I look back at our season and I think, okay, who’s going to be the next crew chief? How are we going to put a great team together?

You know, I motivate people by being positive. We won against (Doug) Kalitta in ‘06 when the weight of the world was on us. We pulled together as a team. We are all really good at not pointing fingers. That comes from within. I hope we can build a team like that again. I look forward to the challenge. I look forward to racing.

I love the rumors that (Alan Johnson’s) driving his own car next year. Those are the best rumors I’ve ever heard. I don’t think he will, but, man, wouldn’t that be fun. I actually talked about going to Funny Car. If A.J. is gone, we’ve won every race and record, why shouldn’t we go to Funny Car? Then I heard A.J. was going to drive. I thought, I ain’t going nowhere. I’d love to run against him. I’m kind of sitting back and waiting to see what happens there.

But we’ll take the day as it comes. I love a new challenge. I don’t care what form of racing it is. Haven’t made up my mind what I want to do. All I know is it’s going to be some form of drag racing.

Q. Tim, you’ve had a couple extra weeks off to kind of prepare for this final push. How big has this extra time been for your team seeing as how you don’t have the mountain of personnel it takes to go in some of these long stretches of races?
Wilkerson: Well, we’re doing what Tony just mentioned. We go over everything with everybody and make sure there’s no mistakes, that everything is happening correctly, that the car is prepared as well as it can. We got nicked (15 points) for an oil-down deal at

Memphis. Try to make sure that little stuff like that don’t bite us in the butt and continue us on our path so hopefully we can be the champion.

I’m very happy with our progress over the last couple weeks. I don’t like being off. We went 11 weeks in a row through the middle there, went match racing every weekend between things. I seriously think that makes us a better car because everybody, they’re just better at working on it when they do it constantly. It’s like everything else you do, I believe the more you do it, the better you get. Even if we’re match racing, they’re taking the same nuts and bolts off, they’re still preparing the car. It really makes a better team out of it.

We did need a little bit of time to get our junk back in the pile. There’s no doubt about that. We’re fixing cylinder heads the last couple weeks, trying to get enough motors in the trailer to go to the next couple races so we’ll have enough to finish fighting the battle in the end.

But give the guys a little bit of time off. They need a breather every once in a while. I’d go every day if I could. My kid and I went bracket racing two weekends in a row. We haven’t stopped racing; we just stopped racing the Funny Car.

Q. Tim, I’m sure you’re just tickled pink to hear that Tony Schumacher is thinking about moving to Funny Car next year.
Wilkerson: That’s the first time I heard that. I think that would be fun if that’s what Tony wanted to do. Tony and I did a lot of Funny Car racing back in the (Top Alcohol Funny Car) days. He’s got a great organization over there that his dad’s put together. He can surely step into one of them things and do a good job. I’m sure about that.

If I was him, like he said, I’d want to continue racing against A.J. That would be a fun deal to be able to beat him at his own game, if I was him. That would be my main goal, to show the world that just ’cause A.J. left don’t mean we’re going to stumble. I hope and pray that he stays in the dragster just because of that, because I would if I was him. I’d make sure they were unhappy about the day they all left. I’d make their life as miserable as I could. I’m not saying that to be mean or anything. I just think they had a great team there that they split up. I’d make sure they had the worst time they could making it successful on the other side.

Q. Tim, what has been the one thing, if there is one thing you can nail down, as to what has turned your season around and made you such a strong competitor this year and a championship contender?
Wilkerson: Well, again, I’ve kind of mumbled about it all year long, that we just really have kept our eye on the ball this year and worked hard together as a team. We kind of have the same exact chemistry I guess is the word you’d like to use that Schumacher’s dragster team does. We all get along. We all know what we’re up to. Everybody can stay on the same page and understand the reason why we’re going. I got some young guys. This is their second year. That’s really been better because last year they started out. When they first get in there, it’s kind of a dream job that they all wanted to do. Then it’s all of a sudden, ‘Wow, this is a lot of work.’ So after we got that through their head, then this year we’ve been a lot better team.

Of course, the alliance with Don Prudhomme has given us some opportunities to use some equipment we really didn’t have available to us before. In the end of the ‘07 season, Don Schumacher actually let me use some of his equipment over there. That made us a little bit better team at the end of that year.

I don’t know. Again, I like to think that we were this good a team before; we just didn’t quite have the opportunities and (resources). (Primary sponsor) Dick Levi stepped up and gave us more money than we ever had this year. I just think it shows you with the right amount of money, the right amount of perseverance, any team out there can do it. I mean, you seen Tony Pedregon do it last year. Cruz (Pedregon) is coming on good this year. (Jack) Beckman’s car is running good. Some of the others have faltered. That’s just the way it’s going to be. Sometimes you’re the bug and sometimes you’re the windshield. Fortunately this year we get to be the guy going into the last couple races ahead of schedule.

Q. Keep up the good work. You may end up being a teammate of Schumacher in Funny Car next year.
Wilkerson: That would be fun. We could be a two-car team. There would be stranger things than that that ever happened. We could sure use the big check at the end. I hope we can figure out a good way to get there.

Q. Tony, any update on crew chief status for next year for the fuel car?
Schumacher: You know, I keep hearing different rumors. Really, until my dad announces it, I’m not exactly sure. Then I threw the whole curve ball into them last week and said, ‘What about a Funny Car?’ He said, ‘We got a lot of parts and pieces.’ We’re still taking that kind of slowly. There’s very good guys out there. We’ll make a decision soon.

I’m sure we’ll hear something by Vegas. I have to decide if I want to do Top Fuel or Funny Car first. More than likely I’ll stay in Top Fuel just because as much as you hear A.J., A.J., A.J. won a championship, there’s been a lot of stuff that led us to win championships for many years. It’s a great team. It’s a great overall group of people. So I do want to be part of the team that gets to race against him, not egotistically, not to go out and say ha-ha, but to let people know there’s other great people out there. We’ve beat them before. We’ll definitely give him a fight and a run for his money. Whoever we put will be a great team. Whoever our crew chief is will be a great crew chief. Whoever we hire will be the best of the best. We will work together. We’ll motivate people.

You know, I’d love to give you an answer. But if I had one, I would. I think if I had one and I wasn’t supposed to tell you, I would. I’m dying to know myself. There’s a short, short list of people that we’re going to put there, I just don’t know which one it is yet.

Q. Are you really going into next year in a no-win situation if you go back into a Top Fuel car? The greatest season ever in Top Fuel. If you only win 10 races next year, you won 14 with A.J., it seems like the Funny Car would be very appealing.
Schumacher: It is appealing. But I absolutely have to remind everybody, the beginning of this year, we had to run (Doug) Kalitta first round. I said, ‘This is how you start a year off.’ Also ran car with one of the greatest drivers ever. You rise to the occasion from the first time you hit the throttle. That will carry the momentum through the end of the year. I mentioned that. I told the papers. They printed it. I am all about the challenge.

So the Funny Car does seem great. But the Top Fuel car does, too. It’s not about those trophies. It’s about how deep you can dig to beat A.J., to beat those other guys that are going to be great. It’s going to be a different season. Believe me, A.J. is not going to go out there and win 14 or 16 races. We have not finished this season out. He’s not going to do that. I don’t care who he puts in the car. This was just a crazy, awesome year for one particular team. That’s it. Those numbers aren’t going to come up again. Whole lot of things had to go right for that to happen week in and week out. Many of the times when I smoked the tires, so did the other guy. That has to happen. That’s just one of those things where this year it worked out so well for us.

If I do get in a Top Fuel car next year, if I do win six, it’s going to be harder, having to compete against a guy like A.J. That will be gratifying. It’s not impossible. I’ve seen what he uses. It’s all great stuff. What wins those races is not just a great tune-up. It’s eight guys that build that car without mistakes. We can build that again. We can build great people. We have great people in our shop.

It’s keeping a lot of our stuff private, too. Our shop, we keep our stuff pretty locked up over at the Army camp. We don’t let all the other teams dig. Like Tim said, when you go back and you have yourself a shop that no one else can go in and check your barrel valve three times a week when you’re not in the shop, mess it up. We lock our stuff down. We’re very careful. We’re very disciplined. We know how to do that. A.J. just doesn’t know how to do, that our team doesn’t just know how to do that. Overall, my dad, myself, we know how to do that so we’ll be able to build it again.

Q. Tony, could you talk about the experience of achieving your first championship. After that, any difference in your thoughts with each succeeding championship.
Schumacher: The first championship, we hadn’t won a race all year. At the beginning of the year, we ran 330 miles an hour for the first time. We were a brand-new team. It was a brand-new experience for me to run the full season in a Top Fuel car with basically a group of guys I had never met before led by

Dan Olson. The pressure was pretty brutal. When we got down near the end, we were averaging I think mid-60-some points a race. We weren’t winning. We’re going two, three rounds every race. We weren’t going out first round, we were doing a good job. We had Joe Amato and Scelzi and everyone else behind us. I’m thinking to myself, What do you do? This is insane. It was a lot to get through as a new driver.

Now I’m a lot more comfortable in the seat. I understand the guys are great at what they do. I also understand a lot more how you can have the most perfect car and something breaks. I have broke throttle cables, silly little parts and pieces on cars that can cost you a championship. I’m much more in the belief that, ‘Hey, man, make everything perfect and enjoy the moment. Believe it or not, the pressure before was a lot more.

Now with that being said, having a guy like A.J. tune your car and a group where you should win every race, there’s a little more pressure in a different area. Now you got the car where you should win. As a driver, the only thing I can do is screw it up. If I push the pedal down at the right time, we’re going to win, right? That’s not the case, but that’s how it seemed for a lot of the media. I hear it all the time. A.J., the car goes fast. Well, the car goes fast because I stayed shallow, which makes the numbers look better. I’m not patting myself on the chest. (Larry)

Dixon, (Scott) Kalitta, myself, we stayed shallow. A lot of guys have a lot of good cars a lot of the time. So there’s a lot that goes into that. That’s from experience. That’s from doing it.

Now, this year, unlike the last two years, we are going to actually go into Vegas just having to qualify. I’m going to enjoy the last two races as much as I ever have in my life this time. Now, that’s not to say going down to the last run it’s not enjoyable, but it’s almost ruthless, weight of the world pressure on you. This time I’m going to go and have a good time.

Had we had the old points, I’d like to figure out, I have never done it, but I bet I’d be 700, 800 points ahead if we had the old points structure.

Moderator: People race differently with the new points format, so it’s hard to really compare.

Schumacher: We were a great example of that last year. We did a whole lot of testing early on in the season and it paid off at the end of the year. You come down to crunch time when you have to win and do you it. I’m a firm believer in that, too.

But, yeah, you know, all things considered, I wouldn’t trade the position we’re in now for any of the championships. But I’ve enjoyed each one probably an equal amount. Every time I’ve shown up at

Pomona, hopefully this year it will be six championships, I will have enjoyed it and it will all be a different way we’ve had to earn it.

From down and out to up and at ‘em, Will has climbed to second in points

At the end of the 2007 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series, Hillary Will was wondering if she had a made a big mistake. The 28-year-old native of Fortuna, Calif., had graduated from

Wheaton College (

Norton, Mass.) with a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics, taken a somewhat-lucrative job as a financial analyst, but when she realized she just wasn’t happy, bid farewell to the financial sector to pursue the one true passion of her life: drag racing.

With the support of her family, Will had devoted all of her time and energy to straight-line racing, honing her skills in the seat of a Top Alcohol Dragster for a couple of years. She thought her driving dreams had come true in 2006 when she started her first event in the Top Fuel class at the Winternationals, but she and her KB Racing, LLC team, owned by Ken and Kenny Black and managed by Kalitta Motorsports, struggled to get in the groove as a unit and pretty much stayed there for the next 45 events. By the end of 2007, Will, who placed the blame solely on herself, was emotionally in dire straits.

“I felt like I had hit rock bottom,” Will recounted. “I was convinced I didn’t have what it takes to be a Top Fuel driver. I thought I would be doing my team a disservice by continuing to drive so I started making plans for a different career path. I even picked out a new place to live and started packing my things.

“One evening last December, I went to the shop in Ypsilanti (

Mich.) after everybody had gone home. I wanted to sit in my dragster one last time. I sat there for a very long time and couldn’t bring myself to get out of the car. I realized I still had the fire and the passion to drive, and that I didn’t want to quit. I did not want to give up. God had put me in the car for a reason. He would not have given me the opportunity to drive with the best team in drag racing and then not given me the skills I needed to do the job. My problem was that I didn’t trust or believe in myself. I knew I could drive better than I had been. I just had to do it.”

Will pulled herself together and decided to fight as hard as she could for what she now knew was what she wanted more than anything. She and the KB Racing, LLC team gathered in the Kalitta Motorsports conference room one day last winter and put it all out on the table, so to speak. The meeting was brutally honest and tense at times but in the end the gathering of devotees was cathartic and provided the proverbial “flick of the switch” the team needed to reset.

Crew chief Jim Oberhofer explains, “We as a team realized that we all had made mistakes that hurt the performance of our car, me included. There were mistakes that I should’ve caught on to quicker that would have made a difference in our performance. The good news is that we all learned from these mistakes and took the necessary steps to correct them – both physically and emotionally.”

After a trying first two seasons, Hillary Will (below left) and crew chief Jim Oberhofer (below right) reached the winner’s circle earlier this year in Topeka (above) and are currently second in Top Fuel points.

The meeting of the minds certainly has garnered the desired results. Until this season, Will and the KB team had never been higher than 9th in POWERade points and had a two-year total of 23 round wins. With two events remaining on this year’s schedule, Will sits in second place in points and she and her team have more than doubled their round-win tally to 49, collecting three final rounds in this year’s campaign and a breakout NHRA win in

Topeka in June.

Oberhofer acknowledges there have been some fairly radical mechanical changes made to the KB rail in the past several months, but he is also quick to point out how much his team’s attitude has played a role in their successful season.

“We had a good, fast race car when the season started and managed to win a few rounds and even the event in

Topeka, but we felt like we needed to pick up the pace a little more if we were going to compete for the championship.

“After Englishtown, everything changed for our entire organization. It was hard for me to focus on our car after the loss of Scott Kalitta. Scott was like my big brother and all of a sudden he was gone. We stumbled through Norwalk, Denver, and

Seattle with no round wins and a below average-performing car. Before

Sonoma, I decided it was time to, well, pull my head out of you know where and get this thing back on track. We made it to the final there with some good driving by Hillary and a little luck. After that I started making changes to a setup that was better suited for 1000 foot.

“Since then, our whole team has been doing a great job. Hillary really has stepped up her driving and she’s doing a great job. The crew has been just about flawless and working very hard. My assistant crew chief, Troy Fasching, has been bringing more and more to the table every day and making sure the car is perfect. There’s been a complete change of attitude in our pits both before and after Englishtown and the proof is in the performance.”

Will also attributes a very special trip to the other side of the world to her change of attitude and perspective, “Earlier this year, I went on a goodwill tour in

Afghanistan to visit our troops. I had no idea how much the trip would change the way I think.  Most of my life, I have had a tendency to get worried and anxious about things. After being in a war zone, I realized that I don’t really have a lot to worry about in my everyday life. I can sleep at night without fear of being shot down or bombed.

“It made me realize that I was approaching every race like it was a war. I was putting so much unneeded pressure on myself. I would get so uptight and tense that I made myself miserable, and my driving suffered because of it. I used to get in the car and just be a bundle of nerves.  My goal would be to not mess up again. Now I get in the car with a much calmer mind, knowing I have the God-given ability to do this; I know we can win, and we expect to win. I still make mistakes and get frustrated, but at least now I have a better attitude and a mindset that allows me to put things in focus and to work on improving without being too critical.

“I think about our service men and women over there everyday and pray for their safety. It seems that the collective support of our troops has gone down lately because there is so much talk about the economy and the election. We still have a lot of families making tremendous sacrifices for our country, and we need to remember them and honor them every chance we get.”

Will is returning to the Middle East in December for another goodwill tour, this time in

Iraq.

Will and the KB Racing, LLC team will continue to race under the banner of Palm Beach International Raceway for the remaining two events of 2008 as they did at the previous event in

Richmond. However, the team is still trying to secure a primary sponsor for 2009. Without corporate support, the team will likely be sidelined for the bulk of the upcoming season, but neither Will nor Oberhofer are conceding yet.

“It would be a real shame to not be able to keep our team together next year,” Will said. “We want to carry our momentum into the 2009 season. I have every reason to believe that we can win the championship next year. 

“Ten years from now I hope we can say we signed a primary sponsor at the end of the 2008 season we’re talking about extending our partnership for another decade.”

Oberhofer added, “I feel we have a great shot at finishing 2nd in the points this year and that we can even win another race or two. Finishing 2nd would be a huge accomplishment for our KB team. My biggest hope is that we can lock down funding for 2009 because I, too, believe we will contend for the Full Throttle championship.”

Prudhomme Racing signs Massey for 2010 Top Fuel team

Spencer Massey

Don Prudhomme Racing has signed Spencer Massey to a multi-year agreement with plans to put him behind the wheel of a new Top Fuel dragster team beginning with the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle season.

In his first season piloting a Top Fuel dragster, Massey, 26, has recorded an impressive four wins in five final rounds and is in a position to claim the 2008 IHRA Top Fuel championship. Massey has also posted an impressive effort this season in Division 4 of the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, winning once in three final rounds while competing in the Top Alcohol dragster category.

“I am honored and very excited to have this opportunity with Snake Racing,” said Massey. “This is something that I’ve always wanted to do and now I’m getting the chance to live the dream. I’ve always looked up to Snake for everything he has accomplished over his career. Snake Racing is a top of the line organization and now I am in a position to be a part of that, so I am very excited.”

The agreement will allow Massey to continue his efforts in the 2009 IHRA and NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, as Snake Racing continues to finalize plans for the debut of a new Top Fuel team in 2010. Massey will immediately be available to drive for Snake Racing should the new team be formed prior to the 2010 NHRA season.

“We are very pleased to have Spencer join our team as we look toward the future,” said team owner Don Prudhomme. “Spencer has all the tools necessary to be successful in this sport and we are excited about the opportunity to build a new team with him as the driver. We met with Spencer earlier this year and since then have included him in many of our presentations to potential sponsors. We are confident that he has the talent to get the job done not only behind the wheel, but with the sponsors, media and fans.”  

Don Prudhomme Racing currently fields the U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company Top Fuel dragster, driven by two-time NHRA Champion, Larry Dixon. The 2009 NHRA Full Throttle Series will see U.S. Smokeless continue its 21-year partnership with Snake Racing, along with

Dixon who returns as driver for his 14th season.

Richmond, VA (10-8-08) — Morgan Lucas, driving his Lucas Oil Stabilizer Top Fuel dragster raced to his third semi-finals round finish of the 2008 POWERade season before bowing out to a strong Tony Schumacher at the NHRA Virginia Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park.

Lucas started his day by taking out the No. 2 contender in the POWERade Countdown to the Championship; Cory McClenathan in the first round of eliminations after Lucas ran a consistent time of 3.881 seconds, 309.70 mph to Cory Mac’s backpedaling run of 3.970 seconds at a speed 307.37 mph.

In taking the first round win, that advanced him to the quarterfinals taking along with him his teammate, J.R. Todd for only the second time of the 2008 Top Fuel season since the Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, Mn. in August. His colleague, Todd took out the No. 4 challenger in the Countdown, Larry Dixon in his first round of Sunday’s eliminations.

Lucas was adjacent to Bob Vandergriff in his quarterfinals race and won again taking him to the semi-finals for the first time since Chicago in June. Lucas’ triumph was achieved early on the run after Vandergriff lost traction offering the smooth sailing Morgan Lucas clear passage to the finish line running a time of 3.861 seconds, 308.85 mph, his best of the weekend.

It was the semifinals round that dealt Lucas his biggest jolt during eliminations when Tony Schumacher ran a heart-stopping time of 3.795 seconds, 314.68 mph to Lucas’ pass of 3.885 seconds, 308.21 mph ending his prosperous day.

“Right now everyone is chasing that black and gold car over there,” said an upbeat Lucas, who reached his 20th semi-final round of his career. “Alan (Johnson) and Tony are a great combination with Tony being a great driver and Alan being a great crew chief. We’re in the process of basically getting ready for next year and trying to get the bugs worked out. As far as I’m concerned, the car went down the track three times today. I struggled in the first part of the day, my Lucas Oil crew carried me, and we got a couple of win lights. We pulled it together for that last run, but didn’t run as quick as we would have liked to and the win light didn’t come on in that round. It’s just as simple as that. We’ve got two more races to win one this year, if not, we’ve got a big year ahead of us next season and we’ll see what happens.”

Lucas qualified in the lucky No. 13 starting position in the ultra-competitive Top Fuel field by completing qualifying with his pass of 3.890 seconds, 307.30 mph.

Lucas stays in the No. 12 position in the NHRA POWERade Top Fuel points standings with 901 points after the Virginia Nationals

I want to take a moment to thank all the readers of ou blog for being so patient over the past couple of weeks.

We sustained a lot of damage due to hurricane Ike and are just starting to get back to normal or a reasonable fascimilie of normal.

We will be following our friend Tim Wilkerson’s charge for the NHRA world championship.  It is an honor to know Tim.  One of Tim’s close associates is actually our Team mate and you will be seeing some great things come in he 2009 season from Nitro Dogs Racing.

Nitro Dogs racing is teaming up with Sal Ramos ” Freakin Rican” Nitro Funny car team for the 2009 Season. 

We will be unveiling our cars for next season in the near future.

Please keep coming back to see what new and exciting things we have in-store for the new season.

We will have more in-depth news and insider information in the coming weeks.

We will also be chronicling the racing of both my daughter Amber and my wife Juanette as they step into an 11 second Chevy Nova for the first time.  We will have photos and interviews of what it is like for a first time driver.  I cant’s wait for them to experience the thrill of drag racing for the first time as a driver.

Nitro Dogs is also working on a race to be run at Houston Raceway Park in the coming months.

Again thanks for being patient and we are sorry for the past few weeks we just could not get our minds off of the terrible loses we saw due to the hurricane and the losses we also sustained.

So now lets go racing…..