- Tim Wilkerson and Daniel Wilkerson are father and son—both looking forward to another Father’s Day together—but they don’t always root for each other.
- Sometimes Tim’s SCAG Power Equipment Ford Shelby Mustang ends up going head-to-head with Green’s Daniel Wilkerson-tuned, Bond Coat Ford Mustang on the NHRA drag strip,
- This Father’s Day weekend, the two camps unite back home in Springfield where dad and son’s families live about a mile apart.
Funny Car driver Tim Wilkerson is a 62-year-old, 23-time winner in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series.
Son Daniel is a 35-year-old crew chief for one of Tim’s rivals in the class, Chad Green.
And while Tim and Daniel are father and son—both looking forward to another Father’s Day together—they don’t always root for each other. Sometimes Tim’s SCAG Power Equipment Ford Shelby Mustang ends up going head-to-head with Green’s Daniel Wilkerson-tuned, Bond Coat Ford Mustang on the drag strip, like they did this past weekend at the Thunder Valley Nationals.
Nope, they both can’t win.
No hard feelings. It’s just part of the game.
“Dan’s a great kid,” Tim Wilkerson said. “We talk about how his car is going to run every run. I’ll run him off when we have to run each other, but outside of that, I pretty much know what they’re doing every second of the day.”
That’s a good dad, for you. Always keeping tabs on the kid.
“I don’t know how to put it without sounding like a gloating dad, of course, but he’s always been a great kid,” Tim said. “He listens, and he’s got his own ideas, and he doesn’t get offended if you tell him he’s wrong.
“I don’t really have my finger on his pulse, but he doesn’t get too far away.”
As for Daniel, working next to his dad is a lifelong dream come true—or at least something he’s been kicking the tires on since elementary school.
“That was the dream, right?,” Daniel said. “I mean, when I was in fourth grade, my guidance counselor told me I needed to pick another job because I said I wanted to drive a race car with my dad. He said that wasn’t very realistic. I had to pick something else.”
Tim Wilkerson and son Daniel are not afraid to share a little Funny Car information, to a point, on race weekends.
That didn’t sit well with the youngster, who did drive for a short spell before moving on to become a crew chief.
“My whole life, I’ve been hanging out with him racing, so the dream would be to do it for a living, and that’s what we wound up doing,” Daniel said. “I get to go hang out with one of my best friends everyday. It’s pretty special.”
The family rivalry has been heated in the NHRA Funny Car class this season. Chad Green, thanks in large part to Daniel’s calls as crew chief, is fourth in the standings, while Tim is seventh. Tim scored his 23rd career Funny Car win last month at Route 66 Raceway at Joliet, Ill.—not far from his home at Springfield, Ill.
Green and Tim Wilkerson have met in one final. They were part of the final quad at the Four-Wide Nationals at Las Vegas that was won by Matt Hagan. They’ve met a few times in lower rounds of eliminations, most recently at Bristol, where Green beat Wilkerson in the quarterfinals.
That win at Joliet, says Tim, was fate. Or at least one for the numerologists out there.
“At Joliet, we qualified fifth every run, which is kind of weird,” Tim said. “You’re never the same one, every run. At the end of the race, we were fifth in points. It was my 23rd win. Two days later, it was my anniversary — 5-23 (May 23).
“Of course you know who came up with that? My lovely bride. If I could clone her, I wouldn’t have to work. She’s the sweetest person who ever walked in. She’s more worried about Daniel every day than I am. I know he’s got big shoulders.”
But Tim adds there’s no question, in his mind anyway, where wife Krista’s allegiance falls on race day with Tim goes up against Daniel’s car.
“We kick that damn kid to the curb, where he belongs,” Tim said, laughing.
Daniel, who is also a dad, is okay with that.
“I think he’s right.” Daniel said when asked about where Mom stands. “She always says, ‘Oh, good luck, be safe.’ I know what that means—it means ‘You’re going down, kid.”
In other words, don’t look for Krista to get one of those specially made crew shirts sporting dad’s sponsor on one side, and Dan’s on the other.
“Not just yet,” Dan said. “If I was driving, it might change, but for now I think she’s pretty well fixed over there in that camp.”
This Father’s Day weekend, the two camps unite back home in Springfield where dad and son’s families live about a mile apart.
“On Father’s Day I’m sure we’ll go over there and do some fishing and some burger-grilling,” Daniel said. “The dynamic is really cool. A lot of days, I tell Tim that I hope my kids get to do half the stuff that we’re getting to do, because this is beyond living the dream. This is almost a fantasy.”
That sounds good to proud papa Tim.
“We’re the luckiest group in the world when it comes to family,” he said. “We count our blessings every day when we wake up, because everybody has got siblings and friends that have kids that are not such good kids, and have problems with substance abuse or whatever. We don’t have any of those issues.
“Like I say, we count our blessings every day.”
Mike Pryson covered auto racing for the Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot and MLive Media Group from 1991 until joining Autoweek in 2011. He won several Michigan Associated Press and national Associated Press Sports Editors awards for auto racing coverage and was named the 2000 Michigan Auto Racing Fan Club’s Michigan Motorsports Writer of the Year. A Michigan native, Mike spent three years after college working in southwest Florida before realizing that the land of Disney and endless summer was no match for the challenge of freezing rain, potholes and long, cold winters in the Motor City.
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