Ennis, pre-race: The remnants of hurricane Ivan brought it's devastation to Pennsylvania and chased the NHRA out of Reading, canceling the Lucas Oil Nationals, and sent all the teams scurrying out of town. One bright point was that it gave everyone a little extra time to travel to Ennis, Texas for this weekend's 19th annual O'Reilly Fall Nationals at the Texas Motorplex. Tim Wilkerson took advantage of the extra time and took his Levi, Ray & Shoup Monte Carlo Funny Car back to the shop in Springfield, Ill. Although discouraged about having to return to Maple Grove Raceway in two weeks, Wilkerson managed to use the extra time to his advantage.

"My heart goes out to all the people who were affected by Ivan," expressed Wilkerson. "Don't get me wrong, we certainly didn't experience an ounce of the devastating hardship like so many people did, but having to return to Reading does make it tough on us.

"When they told us the race was cancelled on Saturday, I decided that we had enough time to go back to the shop, instead of sitting around. We were able to work on the car a little bit and we went to Joliet again to test. We ran the setback blower and are very pleased with how it performed. We ran 4.91 at 312 mph, and so I think we'll try it this weekend."

Last year at this event, Wilkerson qualified No. 7 and had one of the most consistent Funny Cars on the premises, but lost to Dean Skuza in the first round of eliminations.

"The Levi, Ray & Shoup Funny Car usually runs pretty well at the Texas Motorplex," said Wilkerson, "but we don't have the best of luck. Last year, I was out ahead of Skuza when the lower blower pulley sheered off. This year with the way our Monte Carlo has been performing, I think we can get the win if we can just turn around our Dallas luck."

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