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Wilkerson started to regain his formidable
form in May at Englishtown, following a phone
call from sponsor Dick Levi, who assured him
of his continued support and gave him some ironic
advice. Said Levi, "Relax. Have a good time.
You're putting too much pressure on yourself.
Do like you used to do. Go out and have fun."
It was an odd suggestion for Wilkerson, one
of drag-racing's most notorious jokesters, who
always has a wisecrack as handy as his Mac Tools.
"It was great advice," Wilkerson said. "We
decided we're going to run this thing like we
have nothing to lose. We're going to be aggressive,
we're going to run as fast as we can, and on
race day we're going to make smarter moves."
One clever move Sunday was his last-second
lane switch before the final run because of
a bald spot he noticed downtrack. That annoyed
and distracted Gray and team owner Chuck Worsham.
Although Wilkerson remains out of the top 10,
he showed at Brainerd and again with his $75,000
effort Sunday afternoon he's ready to do be
consistently competitive. And that includes
against Bazemore, who defeated him in the 1997
final at Indianapolis and told him something
that irks him today. "We just didn't have time
to prepare our car that day," Wilkerson said,
"and I'll never forget it. Whit told me, 'You
know why you didn't win? You haven't earned
it. You have to earn it, a U.S. Nationals victory.'
I wish he was standing up here now."
Besides, Wilkerson joked, "I think God ought
to let everybody out there win one once in awhile.
It's so tough physically and emotionally. There
are too many sharp objects around here not to
win a race after two or three years."
PRO STOCK
Pro Stock points leader Greg Anderson had won
at Indianapolis in 2001, but his $35,000 triumph
Sunday over red-lighting finalist and keenest
rival Kurt Johnson brought a special satisfaction,
too.
He wanted to make sure no one dismissed his
first victory on the storied IRP quarter-mile
as a fluke. He said if he hadn't repeated at
some point in his career, "I guarantee you other
people
would accuse you of that. You've got to come
back and validate it," the Charlotte, N.C.,
resident said. "And we did it in wonderful fashion.
Nobody -- I don't care who it is -- could say
we didn't earn it. Our toughest critics couldn't
say that."
It was his eighth victory in 2003, his second
in a row and third in the last four races in
the Vegas General Construction Pontiac Grand
Am. He did it with a 6.803-second performance
at 203.40 miles an hour. He advanced by overcoming
George Marnell's better reaction time in the
opening round, catching Ron Krisher after the
Ohioan's .008 jump off the tree in the quarterfinals,
and edging semifinal foe Jeg Coughlin Jr. by
three-hundredths of a second.
He said he didn't feel cheated that Johnson
red-lit. He said he didn't even consider the
foul a red-light in his eyes. "It's really bearing
down as hard as you can and your car reacting
better than it should have. I'm not calling
that red light. He just missed it by a hundredth
of a second," Anderson said.
"He was flat going for a perfect light," Anderson
added. "He dug in a little too deep and he tried
too hard. What that tells me is that I must
have had him concerned. He knew he had to do
something special to win that race. That's a
compliment."
He said he knows "it'll be a dogfight to the
end" for the class title in the remaining six
races. "If somehow I can be fortunate enough
to go on and win the championship, you've won
Indy on your resume during that year," said
Anderson, the points leader who pushed second-place
Johnson to 176 points back. "That's like cleaning
the table. If you win Indy and not the championship,
you've left something out."
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