Joliet, pre-race: Springfield, Ill. resident, Tim Wilkerson plays many roles on the Levi, Ray & Shoup (LRS) Funny Car team. Not only does Wilkerson own the team and drive the fuel coupe, but also has a complete understanding of all the mechanical aspects and therefore with the advice of Fred Mandoline, he makes the tuning decisions. Going into this weekend's 4 th annual Carquest Auto Parts Nationals at Route 66 Raceway, the home of Wilkerson's first Funny Car career win, he is in a quandary and is wearing his tuner's hat as he makes a serious decision.

One of the new mechanical advances that many of the teams are using on their race cars is the set back supercharger. Wilkerson has tested it twice recently, both times at Route 66 Raceway and was happy with its performance and promise. Then he ran it this past weekend at the O'Reilly Fall Nationals and was disappointed.

"The LRS Monte Carlo showed a little promise with the backset on last weekend in Dallas," said Wilkerson. "But it's not as terrific as it looks like it should be. We're not sure if we're going to run it in Joliet or not. It depends on how we feel. I have to think about it a little bit and make an evaluation of whether we're doing the right thing or not.

"After we tested with it in Joliet, we thought we should give it a chance. But I really don't know if it's a big benefit. We've been running it trying to see if there's any magic in it and it really doesn't seem that there is. There is supposed to be this magic in that cylinders stay the same and blah, blah, blah. Well we're still chasing the idle all over the place. We have a lot of family and friend and LRS guest coming to Joliet this weekend and we'd really like to run good for them, so I have to decide what we're going to do."

So, the questions still stands, will he or won't he? We'll just have to wait to find out the answer when the LRS Monte Carlo rolls up to the starting line for the first qualifying session on Friday afternoon.

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