Sonoma, Sunday: The 17th Annual Fram Autolite Nationals at Infineon Raceway was the last stop of the mid-summer western swing on the 2004 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series tour. Springfield, Ill. native Tim Wilkerson capped off the grueling three races by taking the Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevy Monte Carlo on a trip to the winner's circle in beautiful wine country. Wilkerson's win today was his second of the 2004 season and the fifth in his Funny Car career.

Wilkerson advanced through the rounds taking out his competitors one at a time. In the first round Wilkerson took out Jerry Toliver with a 5.024 at 313.95 mph. Wilkerson then triumphed over a tire smoking Whit Bazemore with his quickest pass of the day, 4.946 seconds at 312.78. Wilkerson's semifinal opponent, Tony Pedregon also didn't have a chance against Wilk's 5.104 to Pedregon's 5.268.

In the final round Wilkerson faced off against John Force. Here Force handed Wilk the win in virtue of a red light, as Wilkerson ran 5.088 seconds at 282.72 mph.

"Force ran 4.85 in the semi's," said Wilkerson, "and when we were back in the pit getting ready for the final round, I said to Fred (Mandoline, crew chief), 'we don't have anything for that so let's just go out there and try to run our car and maybe we'll be lucky enough and Force will make a mistake.' He definitely had the car to beat. He's so good and races at the top every time he goes up there so I'm just thankful for the little hiccup that he had. We had a good car all weekend. We beat the cars we had to beat and in the finals we got a little gift.

"It's still a win and we beat three guys to get there. The object is to get down the race track and we did that every round. Even in the finals, we went down the track. It wasn't very fast, but we went down the race track. All day everybody was throwing up for John and that's what we were trying not to do. I guess we had to do a little good to get that far.

"It's less satisfying to me to win when the other guy red lights. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that I won but it's a little anti-climatic because when I won Indy I was the fastest car there, when I won Reading I was the fastest car there, and when I won Houston I was the fastest car there. That's what I come here for. I don't come here to be handed a red light. I'm grateful for our win, don't misunderstand me but it's not near as satisfying as being the bad ass out there.

"I'm proud of my guys, everybody did a good job. The car ran so good, it didn't have any holes out and we ran the same motor all weekend. What a tremendous job the crew did and I'm lucky to get to drive the thing. And we are so proud to win for our sponsors, Levi, Ray & Shoup, White Night, Summit, Craftsman and Fram. It's great to end the western swing on a high note. We'd like to keep this momentum going into Brainerd and Memphis. And we have to get our stuff together for Indy because we're in the Skoal Showdown, and hopefully we can keep this up."

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