From the pitside grandstands at Gateway Motorsports Park, the 630-foot tall Gateway Arch is clearly visible, just a few miles away on the other side of the Mississippi. Only blocks away from the beautiful and distinctive national monument sits Busch Stadium, the home of the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals play 81 home games per season at Busch, and with a rabid and loyal fan base they understand the power and the advantage of playing at home. At the time of the release of this story, they were currently tied with the L.A. Dodgers for the best home record in baseball, at 50-24.

NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing is, in effect, a series of events held on neutral sites, but if any driver on the tour can claim a real and definitive “home game” on the 24-race schedule it’s Funny Car star Tim Wilkerson, the man they call Wilk who hails from just up the interstate in Springfield, Ill. With his sponsor, Levi, Ray & Shoup also Springfield-based, and with legions, literally thousands, of regional fans who proudly call themselves Wilk’s Warriors, Wilk will have a massive cheering section and a beehive of activity in and around his pit throughout the St. Louis race this weekend, with LRS President and Owner Dick Levi leading the way. Other than Wilk at Gateway, it would be nearly impossible to find another race with another large and specific fan base so focused on one driver.

“It’s a real deal, and you can’t mistake it,” Wilk said. “Our sport isn’t like what happens over there across the river at Busch Stadium. Our fans are, first and foremost, fans of the sport and of the speed and the noise. A lot of them have their favorite driver, but then you divide that up by all the Pro drivers out here and it’s not like a Cardinals’ game where the entire stadium is dressed in red. Our stands are full of all sorts of different t-shirts and hats.

“At Gateway, we’re just fortunate to have so many fans of our team who all come to the track decked out in their Team Wilkerson stuff, and they come to our pit to cheer for us like it means as much to them as beating the Cubs means to a Cardinals fan. They’re really passionate, and honestly it’s just an honor to try to do some good for them.”

Doing some good is always a big goal at any NHRA Mello Yello race but with St. Louis being the second of six races in the Countdown playoffs, and with Wilk having lost in the first round at Charlotte, combined with the huge LRS and Wilk’s Warriors presence, it’s truly a home game right in the middle of crunch time.

Wilk slipped to ninth in points after dropping his opener to Alexis DeJoria this past weekend, but with Jack Beckman also going out in the first round, nearly as many doors stayed open as seemed to close. When Del Worsham and Tommy Johnson leapfrogged Beckman by meeting in the final round (with Worsham winning and taking over the points lead) the standings were as much compressed as they were expanded. Wilk trails Worsham by 126 points, which equals seven rounds of racing. There are 20 rounds left in the 2015 season.

“Going into this thing eighth, we were a long-shot to begin with and there’s really not a lot of leeway in terms of making it to the top in the standings,” Wilk said. “But, if Jack would’ve won the race we’d already be fairly well out of it. With him going out too, we might be set up for a lot of juggling up there at the top of the standings, because all of those guys can’t win all the time. If we can get back to winning rounds while some of the teams at the top beat each other up, the scenarios are all over the board. It will be interesting, that’s for sure.

“For us, the goal is to bounce back from Charlotte and figure out why our clutch seemed to be possessed on Saturday and Sunday. We’re going over everything with a fine-toothed comb right now, and we need to be ready to do a lot better in St. Louis. There will be a lot of people pulling for us, and we want to give them all good reasons to cheer.”

It’s crunch time. It’s a home game. It’s everything Tim Wilkerson could want in terms of support and the most critical moment.

Courtesy of Bob Wilber

Photos by Larry Vancil

St. Louis Motor Racing News