Maybe the reason Tim Wilkerson doesn’t seem fazed by the pressure lurking all around him is the veteran Funny Car driver keeps himself too busy to take notice.

Wilkerson, the Illinois-based driver, has longtime held the dual roles of crew chief and driver. Sunday at zMax Dragway, Wilkerson took his hectic pace right to the winner’s circle at the DeWalt Tools NHRA Carolina Nationals.

Wilkerson’s victory marks his second in the last three weekends. 

“It was tremendous pressure today,” Wilkerson said. “Crazy, crazy day. It started out pretty good. Went down the track just like I wanted to. From there, it kind of went bizarre. Force had me beat [in the second round].

“It was a tough day. I mean, we barely made it to the rounds in the semis, in the finals. Capps sent me a text and said, ‘Hey, we’ll wait for you in the back of the lanes man, We won’t pull up, guarantee you.”

“But it was a tough day. I’m very proud of my guys. We were one team today. We had two teams at Indy helping us. We only had one team, and boy we looked like it. We were thrashing. I was out there changing tires and putting motors in and Lord, I’m worn out. I can tell you for sure.”

About the only “normal” drag races Wilkerson had was in the first-round victory over Bob Tasca III and the final round victory over Cruz Pedregon. 

The rest were not so conventional.

The second-round win over Force was payback from fate after getting caught off guard in Reading. Force was on his way to almost certain victory when his Peak-sponsored Camaro Funny Car drifted close enough to take out a finish line timing block. 

“He ambushed me last week, my Lord,” Wilkerson said of their first round match in Reading. 

“It looks like I just need to qualify number eight. I won Indy out of the number eight spot too. So that’s what I’m going to do for the rest of the year. We’re just going to qualify No. 8.”

Then in the semi-final win over Capps, it was questionable if Wilkerson would even make the call. It’s one thing to be short on horsepower, another thing to be down on manpower.

“Our normal tire guy, he’s down,” Wilkerson explained. “Our other guy hurt himself on Saturday. First round, I come back and my clutch guy, there’s blood running down the top of his head, where the guy taking the cylinder head off, smacked him with a torque wrench. So he’s dizzy as hell, walking around in there, looking like he’s drunk. 

“So I take him up into the lounge. Mop him all off. Super glue his head back together. Put a bandage on top of it. He does his job. We win the race. Cool as it can be. But yeah, it was a tough day.”

Yes he tunes, he drives, and now jokingly he's an unlicensed physician. 

“We looked at him and thought he’s got to have stitches, and he’s like, ‘You’re not giving me stitches,” Wilkerson recalled. 

“So I stuck his head back together with some super glue and put a big old bandage on it and sent him. So I asked him how he felt a while ago. He goes, ‘I think you should be a doctor, boss.”

Might as well, as Wilkerson admits staying bodes well for him when it comes to avoiding the pressure of pressure situations. 

“My wife said that. She goes, ‘if you don’t have a heart attack today, I’m going to for you. This is ridiculous.”

And I said, “Well, I can’t get rid of you. You’re my lucky charm. So you stay in here and keep calm, and I’ll do the goofy work.” 

“Sometimes there’s too much time to stare at the thing and make changes. Today I made wholesale changes and lived with them, and it worked out.”

Included in the list of things he refuses to worry about is a championship he’s come close to winning yet has eluded him. 

“Every race is a new race,” Wilkerson said. “If we get down in Pomona and we got a chance to win it, then we’ll clap our hands. But yeah, not that big a deal.”

So Wilkerson gets amped up to race drivers but not win a championship?

“One race at a time,” Wilkerson said with a smile. “Is my nose is getting longer?”