Bristol, pre-race: One year ago when the Levi, Ray & Shoup (LRS) transporter rolled into Bristol Dragway, Tim Wilkerson and his team were struggling with the LRS fuel coupe. They were 15th in the POWERade points standings, they had suffered a dnq and had won only one round of competition.

But what a difference a year makes. This year as the LRS team prepares for the Fourth Annual O'Reilly Thunder Valley Nationals presented by Quaker State at Bristol Dragway; they are ranked as one of the top teams in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series. Wilkerson is standing No. 3 in the points, a far way off from last year's 15th position.

During this year's time, Wilkerson qualified No. 1 twice, he advanced to the quarterfinal round six times, the semifinal round two times, and the finals four times, which yielded three National Event wins, including the coveted U.S. Nationals. Then to put the frosting on the cake, Wilkerson and his team won the O'Reilly Spring Nationals last weekend. And to make all of these accomplishments even more impressive, they did them as a single car team in a multi-car team world.

"I contribute a lot of our improvement, during the past year, on the team camaraderie that has developed," said Wilkerson. "We've got the same people and the same parts and the team has really jelled. You have a lot of cohesion when things run well and aren't falling apart. Anytime you have a distraction, it affects how the car runs. My guys are all doing a great job. I can see how a good team makes it so much easier for the crew chief, when he can trust that the crew guys are doing their job. I'm not Austin Coil. It takes me 25 runs to figure things out instead of five. So, having a team that works well together helps tremendously.

"And then there is Fred (Mandoline). Every time we make run, Fred learns a lot and that really helps. And he's a wizard at reading the track. He can tell me just where to put the car and how to run it down the track. It helped tremendously this past weekend in Houston, because there was so much crown in both lanes. Fred was able to tell me just where to stage and how to maneuver the track so that we didn't smoke the tires, like so many of the other teams did. Plus he is so smart mechanically, that he can fix anything on the race car and on the trailer. And he can find a better, more efficient way to do everything.

Having a great team and all the right ingredients, doesn't guarantee success. Every day and every race has hurdles to conquer.

"Our goal in Bristol is to overcome our newest obstacle, the new tires," Wilkerson said. "All the teams have to run the new tire starting this week. It's different and it acts weird, so it's going to take some doing to figure them out. But I think we'll be able to during qualifying. And as long as we tackle our tire hurdle we should be able to go rounds and keep our performance momentum going strong."

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