There was a day when Tim Wilkerson couldn’t win a coin toss. Sunday in St. Louis wasn’t it and for that matter, none of the events in 2008 have been either.

Wilkerson has discovered a well of performance and good fortunes and he’s drawing from the reservoir on a regular basis.

“You lose your handle on what's going on with those cars and it's really hard to get it back,” Wilkerson said. “Just through tenacity and a lot of help from a lot of people out here, I don't think there's one crew chief in Top Fuel or Funny Car that hasn't helped me one time or another with some stupid question I had, they're all probably upset about that now.” There was a day when Tim Wilkerson couldn’t win a coin toss. Sunday in St. Louis wasn’t it and for that matter, none of the events in 2008 have been either.

Wilkerson has discovered a well of performance and good fortunes and he’s drawing from the reservoir on a regular basis.

“You lose your handle on what's going on with those cars and it's really hard to get it back,” Wilkerson said. “Just through tenacity and a lot of help from a lot of people out here, I don't think there's one crew chief in Top Fuel or Funny Car that hasn't helped me one time or another with some stupid question I had, they're all probably upset about that now.”

Wilkerson is the kind of person his peers can’t help but like. His proverbial hard luck to good luck story is the kind that warms the heart.
 
“We have never been in the points lead in anything in my life,” Wilkerson said. “I’m really surprised to be able to tell you at this point that we be doing this well and hopefully when the new cars come out in the Denver area when we have to start with our new car, that won't put a damper on my performance.”

As for his competition, he’s sure they may be upset at his success but he can still count on them for help.

“I think some of them are still proud of me,” Wilkerson said. ‘Tell you what, the Force gang and I are pretty tight . I mean we had a lot of the gang from Ashley's crew come over and tell me good luck before the run and I wished Zippy good luck. There's nothing personal out there between most of us, we're just trying to get our job done and if you get the guy to stage his car, it's just you racing the race track anyway.”

Wilkerson even joked that a fellow racer during his ramp-up to the winner’s circle in Las Vegas threatened harm.

“Jim Head told me that if I went a 4.80 in the middle of the day at Las Vegas that he was going to burn my trailer to the ground, so thankfully for me I didn't do that,” Wilkerson said, pausing to laugh. “Jerry Toliver told me earlier that they had a bounty on my head, ‘I said, what does it take to beat me?'"

Wilkerson continued, “He said no, just beat you up. I asked him to get one of the girls from hospitality to do that instead of a real mean guy so I don't know if he's going to do that or not.”

Wilkerson delivered a consistent performance all day long while starting from the No. 1 position. En route to the final round he posted three consecutive 4.82 elapsed times. In the final round, he fell off the pace with a 4.874, 317.27. Fortunately for him, Mike Neff did too.
 
“We hurt our good blower in the semis; that threw a bunch of strips out of it and then unfortunately we only had an hour between rounds there that we didn't have time to fix it so I had to put my worst supercharger on there for the finals and that's why it slowed down,” Wilkerson said. “I put a whole lot out there in the middle of the race track. I knew it had a whole lot in the middle because it was vibrating a lot. But it was enough to make the win.

“I was just waiting for Neff to drive around me because I could hear him out of the corner of my ear.”