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Life's a Drag: It's Winter Nationals Week!
Life's a Drag: It's Winter Nationals Week!
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About this episode
Winter Nationals week in Pomona takes center stage, with the WFO Radio crew hyping the 66th Winter Nationals and the historic 1,000th Funny Car race. The big guest is Dan Wilkerson, who talks about what winning would mean for his family, how he handles pressure, and why he loves the growing depth of contenders in Funny Car. Between race talk, he shares memorable interactions with legends like John Force and Don Prudhomme, plus great behind-the-scenes stories. The hosts also swap Pomona food picks and debate their “Masters” meal choices.
Topics:
pomona winter nationals preview
1000th funny car race history
dan wilkerson interview
pressure and first-win mindset
funny car contender depth
autograph and trophy ceremonies
hood scoop return to pro stock
pomona food recommendations
drag racing legend interactions
masters meal food debate
Cars:
Ford Expedition
The boys are back and excited to get back to work as the NHRA descends on Pomona. Daniel Wilkerson joins the show to talk about the 1000th Funny Car race and we want to know if he thinks he has a shot to win his first race. All that and more on Life's a Drag!!
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This is WFO Radio.
Good afternoon.
Good morning, everybody.
Hello.
Life's a drag.
He's live.
Live right now.
There it is.
We're live.
And guess who just, our special guest,
who said he was going to come in later on.
Our special guest is super prompt.
I like him.
Oh, god.
But let's get to the deal of liking and sharing the show.
Yep.
And there's your link for all the merch and all the fun stuff.
I'm Elon Warner.
That's Jason Logan.
Hi.
Have we got our informatics out of the way?
Yeah.
Also, if you missed any episode of Life's a Drag or WFO,
you can go to the archives on YouTube.
Check that out.
Joe, you know, he would take, what's up, beer guy?
Hi there, guys.
Keith Kauffman.
What's happening?
Welcome.
Gary Carey.
Gary Carey.
Hi.
Hi.
Hey.
I don't know who you're talking about.
All right.
Baseball season's up and running.
It's so good.
The Red Sox are terrible.
Is baseball happening?
I mean, I just, college basketball just stopped.
So I don't know what's happening now.
Listen, how great is this?
All right.
So you got Artemis going to the moon, right?
Yes.
Sat around watching that.
That was fantastic.
History of the making.
Then you got the national championship game happening.
The pictures have been phenomenal.
They done great work with their iPhones from the Artemis too.
Yep.
Fantastic.
Shout out to Apple for creating such a magnificent
history.
Big shout out to Mike Rao and all you Michigan fans out there.
Rachel DeLago, Michigan wins the national championship.
But listen, this is going to be a tough week.
We roll into the winter nationals at Pomona.
But this is a weekend like none other.
It's master's week.
This is the masters.
I just read a great book called All Carry
by the great Gene Wojcowski.
It's about a, just came out, but by all means get it.
It's called All Carry.
And it's about the masters and about a, it's a father, son,
tail, and the kid buys a set of golf clubs,
a set of magical golf clubs.
And his dad, who's a basically the, I don't know,
probably the Bruno Massell of NHRA, but except for golf.
OK.
And he uses these golf clubs to almost win the masters.
Oh, that's fantastic.
It's a great book.
It's a super easy read.
Go get it, All Carry.
I love it.
Yeah, this is going to be fun to watch.
I mean, listen, I watch golf just on Sundays
when I'm at home just to kind of relax and wind down.
But the masters is something else, man.
The masters is full stop now.
It is.
It's so good.
And I want to know, before the show ends,
I want you to tell me what your master's meal would
be if you won.
OK.
But you think about it, think about it.
I'm going to think about it for the whole show.
OK, so we're getting into Pomona.
We have a lot.
Yeah, we have a lot to get to.
Pomona this week in the Winter Nationals,
the 66th Winter Nationals.
The 1,000 funny car race.
Next year, 6'7".
6'7".
And 1,000th funny car race in NHRA history.
And we are about to be joined by who I think
he's one of my two picks to win this race.
I'm right there with you.
Let's bring him in.
Let's bring him in.
The great Dan Wilkerson.
I'm in early.
Oh, I thought you had Spencer Hyde in the waiting room.
I wouldn't say that.
But that is my other guy.
That is my dream scenario is a, well, I mean,
I love run caps, too.
Could we get three guys in the final round
of the Winter Nationals?
That's possible.
No, do whatever we want.
All right, I've been talking about the great Dan Wilkerson.
Dan, how are you?
I'm fantastic, my friends.
You guys doing all right?
We're doing good.
Man, we, I started getting excited for the show the minute
you said you could join us.
No.
Because this show is going to be all funny cars all the time.
This is the best kind of show, my friend.
And Dan, how do you feel going into this?
I mean, we're just going to be super sportsy off the top.
What would it mean to you to win
the 1,000 Funny Car Race?
So by my calculations, there's nobody with their name
on their three times.
And I could technically get Wilkerson on that list three
times.
You could.
If we, if we wrap this sucker up this weekend.
Do you know it?
Did your dad, what did he win?
The 600 and 700?
4 and 5.
4 and 5.
Yeah.
I had my best stat guy fact check that for me.
He's in the middle there.
Also, Wilkerson has got his name on the deal twice.
But then so does John Force.
That's right.
You got Trip Shoemaker on there.
The great Johnny Gray is going to make an appearance at Pomona.
Cruz is on there.
Beckman, I think, is on the list.
So it will, it's just going to be a great, great weekend.
I guess Bruce Larson also on the list.
Always fun to have Bruce there.
Bruce there?
Do you want me to tell you who's on the list?
I can do that right now.
I think you just did.
I think you just said everybody.
You touched all the bases.
Yeah, you did.
You did.
Very good.
I didn't get the first person.
I don't remember who the first person is.
Trip Shoemaker, 1980.
Well, he won the 100th.
But who won the first funny car race?
Oh, I don't know that.
I think it's on the list.
If you're on an hra.com, which I highly recommend.
Wilkerson will be able to tell you in two seconds.
Yeah.
So I don't know.
I'm going to give you a look at my FYI.
So obviously that'd be your first win.
And I just think it'd be great.
First win, 1,000 funny car win.
Who would be more excited, your mom or your dad?
So my dear sweet mother has the only thing
that's left to check on her racing list is Pomona.
So I think that mother would lose her mind.
Yeah, I think Tim would be like, yeah, we did it.
That was awesome.
So what are we doing tomorrow?
We got more stuff to work on.
There's questions I want to run.
So tomorrow we're going to work on that.
But Krista would lose her mind, which I don't know.
I'm fairly confident I would be worse off than her.
I might be just a blubbery mess.
Everyone keeps saying I'm excited for that interview.
But it might just be like, thanks.
And we're good with that.
We're good with that.
Yeah, we're totally fine with that.
Is that something?
I'm going to ask you this question, because I just
thought of this.
When people are nominated for an Oscar or an Emmy
and you're down to five guys or women or whatever,
they talk about if they have a speech ready,
you've been to finals.
You're on the list of the next guy
to win of his first race.
Have you thought about what you're going to say?
Do you have kind of in your head?
Is that what you think about, or are you just?
No.
So I think it's going to depend what race it is.
And it depends on what's happening at the race.
You know what I'm saying?
I think it's like as the storyline builds,
the random thoughts in my head start
falling in on each other.
I can tell you that I was pretty confident we're
going to win that Charlotte-Fordewide when
the dry shaft broke in the finals.
But I wrote, I literally, my homie,
Dane gets all my equipment on me, buckles me in.
We get a fist bump.
And I looked at him and I was like, my guys, my family,
my sponsor.
And he's like, what was that?
And I was like, that's the outline of my speed.
I got to hit those three things.
And then whenever else happens, happens.
He's like, all right, sounds like a plan.
Let's go.
That's awesome.
He's like, OK.
You definitely got to get the sponsors in there.
And I mean, can you imagine all the scag guy?
How many people are scagging people
that they put in that pit box?
How many of you think they can get on a golf cart
to head down to the top end to get in the shot on Fox?
I think they're going to be stacked on the roof of the expedition.
They're going to be everywhere.
They're going to have to go back to stack them on top of that
to get them back to the winter circle.
I mean, that's going to intertwine.
Because a lot of those, this is like, sorry, it's cheesy.
But those scag, a lot of those people from scag
have become like family, dude.
Like the crew guys, you work with them every day.
Like we bleed and sweat and cry out here in the shop together.
So like everyone says, oh, like family.
But it's insane how true it is, right?
I mean, I hang out with them more than I
hang out with my kids and my wife.
So it just kind of happens.
The scag's getting the same way, man.
And I'll have dealers texting me
that I haven't heard from for a couple years randomly
when we do good.
They'll shoot me a text.
It's like, oh, my gosh.
I don't know what I did to deserve this.
But this is fantastic.
I think that's a really cool deal
that you have kind of go in there.
Forrest obviously had it with this cash
relationship for so long.
You see it with Ron and the Napa people.
But like how as scag people, you know, you see them,
you know, I don't know how the whole function of how
you get invited to come to a race as a scag dealer.
But you see them annually, some of them probably
multiple times a year.
That's got to be kind of cool to just immediately show up
and have a built-in support system of fans.
Yeah, it's awesome.
You know, one of the things when we first started this,
Randy Glady was like, you know, you're
going to have to part of this deal,
is it's very important to me.
My dealers are really important that you have to come over
here and I was like, dude, I can hang out with people.
So if you're telling me that's
going to be the hardest part of this,
me and you are going to be good.
And it's been exactly what he said.
There's tons of people.
Some of them know absolutely nothing about racing,
which at first that was my favorite part,
getting people that were like, what that?
And then it starts up and they're like,
that was the craziest thing I've ever seen.
But now I'm getting people that they've followed racing
forever and never got to go to one.
I never got to be that close like on the pit box.
And some of them will like shed a single tear.
Like, I never thought I'd get to be down here, man.
So that's now, that's my favorite part now.
It's awesome.
Yeah, my wife, my kid plays soccer.
My wife, she's been around soccer,
but she doesn't understand it.
So as well as he does, she gets all jacked up
and she's like, is he that good?
Is that, is this how this is all going to go?
You know, what's going on here?
And so you, I got to answer questions.
And so, and I always used to love when we had
the baptism, my nitro out there on the starting line
and get people out there and watch their face like,
and just even when we get celebrities,
their baseball players or football players,
these big strong guys and they're like,
I never seen nothing like that.
That's just the craziest thing ever.
So yeah, it's got to be fun.
That's the cool thing too, is when you get first timers
and then people then start getting into the sport
and then they can start talking about stats.
Like, thank you, Ford Pearly for saying Don Pernome
on the first funny car race in 1966.
You know, then they start, they start diving into it.
They start getting into it.
They start seeing that your dad was the guy
before you were the guy.
So yeah, when they start getting into it,
that's when it becomes really cool.
Yeah.
When do you, when's your first funny car memory
kind of come into your brain pan, Dan?
Like is, I'm guessing it's your dad racing,
but were you like at a race?
Like what age were you like fully like into funny cars?
Okay, so you know how sometimes you feel like
you don't really, you don't know if you remember this
or if it's just like someone's told you the story
a bunch of times, so you've created a memory.
But I swear I can remember working on Tim's car with him
in the garage at the house I grew up in.
And it was like, you know, stuff you tell the kid to do.
Like wipe that piece of tin off kind of thing.
But I was like, I'm working on the car, I'm a mechanic.
That was in a garage that was not big enough
to house, we never parked a car in there.
So to have a funny car, so you had to take the headers off.
Like you couldn't roll them with the headers on it.
It was, it was tight.
And I remember working on that thing in there.
And as far as the first like race,
I went to so many indies.
We went to the regional races with the alcohol car.
Right.
So I know for a fact that I was like,
why are they all here?
Cause we went, I feel like we went to him so often.
I didn't know a difference between a national event
and a regional event, but he used to dominate
at that points race.
And I just remember thinking,
I don't know why these other guys even show up
to this indie race, cause Tim's just going in.
So was that like, cause it's funny when my kids grew up
not like, I worked for John Force Racing,
they would go to races and their mindset of a race was
they would go to a race, they would watch the racing
and then there would be a winner circle
at the end of the day.
Yeah, exactly.
Was that kind of like, like you thought like that's kind
of, well, this is how this goes.
Yeah, I, yeah.
My earliest memory is like, why are we going home?
I thought we had to go take pictures before we left.
We had that day one time in Chicago,
all the force cars lost in the first round.
It was like the first time my kids were ever like,
so what do we do now?
I go, we effing keep our heads down.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, he's going to do some work
and then we're going to get that out of here.
Yeah, we got a scoot.
We got lane choice on 55s.
Let's go.
Right, we're going to watch Bruce Almighty
at the theater in Juliet and then get our plane.
Yeah, I love it.
That's right.
How is the 1000th funny car race?
All these things going on as a, you're a fixture
in funny car now.
Are you looking forward to anything this weekend
as far as drivers that are there or ceremonies
or anything like that, Dan?
I always like seeing Bruce Larson.
He's, he's like a genuinely really good dude.
So I'm excited to see him every time he comes out.
Makes me, makes me smile.
I was, so inside baseball, we get these texts with like,
this is the stuff we want you to do,
like the autograph session, blah, blah, blah.
So I'm on the text chain with Tim
and I get this text.
It says, you have an autograph session at 830.
You're supposed to be here at 11.
You have another autograph session at noon.
You need to be on the starting line at one
and I got it.
And I was literally like, you ain't going to do that.
And I sat there and I waited, I waited for it
and my phone went off and it said,
hey, John, not going to be able to do all that,
but I got a race car.
Oh man, he's got it in him, I mean, come on.
He said, I'll try.
All right, I may, I may have to send,
I may have to send Tim a text offline.
He needs, he needs to be out there
and get showered in adoration.
I know he's got to work, put the car together.
But he's got Richard Hartman there.
That's right.
You know, have a plan.
You can nudge him.
Yeah, we have a plan.
That's what I said.
I said, we don't really, we got this.
We got, we got an outline.
He needs to be at all those things.
Cause it's...
I don't disagree with you.
All right.
I will, that a little homework for us.
I am excited for him to be on the starting line
when they have all of them.
That's going to be cool.
That's going to be cool.
That's going to be,
cause it's not going to be that,
but like with the whole, your dad has a couple,
four says, you know,
it's going to be a pretty tight group of guys.
Yeah.
And it's cool that Travis Schumacher's going to be there
honoring his dad, a trip.
So I'm looking forward.
Have you seen the thousandth funny car win trophy?
No.
Dang it.
Another trophy.
Yes.
These trophies.
Bless America.
Yeah.
So they, it's like the top fuel trophy that Sean Landon got,
which was like super tall old school.
Like a motocross trophy.
Like a motocross.
Like, and it weighed like a thousand pounds or something.
Yeah.
So it's one of those cool, it's like a bowl.
And it looks really
Done of a gun.
Yeah.
I keep getting, I need an ice cream scoop.
I need a cowboy hat.
Yep.
I need that little baby Gator.
That thing's awesome.
The Gator trophy is, it was funny.
The first time they started,
I don't know if you remember this or not,
but Brittany and Robert doubled up in Gainesville
and they did like one of these gold plated Gator heads.
Like with like the,
it was nice, but it was like the ones you get
like the souvenir shops.
Yeah.
And they did that for one year
and then they went to like the Gator
and the cool golden Gator deal.
But to have like this Gator head trophy is very funny
that there's a couple in the shop in California.
It is my belief that Robert beat Tim in the finals
of that race.
So I do faintly remember.
Yes, yes.
It was very, but yeah.
So you have the regular, you have the diamond Wally,
which have you seen some of those diamond Wally's?
Oh yeah, dude.
Actually,
there's what we have a little one over here
for best engineered car from Gainesville.
Oh, nice.
So I don't want to be that guy,
but we were the first funny car
to get one of them diamond Wally's.
Yeah.
I mean, be that guy.
Be that guy.
Technically.
Not a flex a little bit.
So listen, this is what,
so if you're coming to Pomona,
this is where all this stuff is going to happen
between fuel prep for Q3 on Saturday morning.
All right.
So it was the afternoon.
So before fuel prep,
we're doing top 75 drivers trackside presentation.
All right.
So those guys are going to be honored.
Then you get a Cackle Fest.
All right.
So then after fuel prep is when
the thousand funny car winners presentation happens.
So if you want to see these guys out there
and you want to see all the pomp and circumstance
be there early on Saturday,
because that's all the stuff is going to happen.
They have early autograph session too.
I know because I'm on the text chain.
So yeah, get there early.
Yeah.
I'll tell you.
NHRA.com.
They've up their game on communicating
about Nitro stage autograph sessions.
You can just go to NHRA.com right there.
Winter Nationals, there's a details deal
and you can see all the stuff.
And it is going to be a banger weekend.
So 9.30 for that autograph session, everybody.
Yeah.
The thousandth.
Perfect.
Dan, if you can't win the thousand funny car race.
Nobody can.
Who do you like to see win the thousand?
Nobody.
I love it.
Dave Richards.
I take it back.
How sick would that be for Dave's first win?
Oh, man.
Man.
I'm going to have a similar meltdown to me.
It would be blue tur for everyone.
Oh, man.
Blue tur for everyone.
Gosh, can you imagine all, oh, phew.
Yeah, that would be, that would be epic.
And it's been a while since we've had
a Bob Bodie style guy comes out of nowhere
Cinderella story.
And that would be.
And they're ripe for that story with Aaron over there.
Aaron over there, exactly.
Yeah.
They are.
Yeah, let me ask you this, with all this talk,
I mean, Elon and I are the two biggest ones.
Oh, he's going to win his first one.
You know, and we're putting all this pressure on you
and does the pressure get to you at all on, you know,
at any point in time during the race weekend
or is it like, are you making it through the first round?
Now does the pressure really build?
You're like, oh, we got to, we got to focus up here.
And it just tensions rise.
Actually, I get, I go the other way.
So I started doing a better job of keeping track
of like what I'm doing and what my lights are.
Like just to see if, oh, don't eat
fricking Brussels sprouts Saturday night
because then your lights suck.
Just whatever, you know.
So I'm trying to do a better job with all that.
And I've tracked that my first round lights
are always my worst ones.
And I've chalked that up to,
I think I'm the most nervous first round.
And then I progressively get less and less nervous.
It's like, all right, I don't know what my problem was there.
We got a good car.
We'll go get them.
And honestly too, I don't have the pressure
to win your first one doesn't happen
usually until I'm like on my way home.
So, you know, you deal with whatever caused you to lose
and you work on it and you see
if you could have done something different
or see what you could have done better.
And then on the way home, I'm like, God bless.
That could have been the first one.
I don't know why it always hits me
like as I'm leaving the track.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, because you, I mean, you're like,
everybody's in the comments are saying
you're an emotional guy and you get,
you wear your emotions on your sleeve
and that's what we love about you.
And but yeah, I could see how that would just,
I mean, I'm not a big anxiety guy.
I mean, listen, anxiety is for, you know, 20 year olds
but you know, I'm like, I get nervous every once in a while
and I see things getting ready to happen.
I'm like, oh my God, I'm getting anxious right here.
I go, I hope he does well.
I hope this person does good.
You know, and I'm not even in the seat.
And I really don't have a, you know, I like all you guys.
So it's like, oh man, this would be awesome.
It's easier driving.
I can tell you that because once you're,
once the thing starts, it's like,
all I gotta do is drive it.
Like I did, it's all done, right?
But even for some reason when I was working on it,
it's like, even as he's pulling forward,
I'm like, gosh, should I put one more nut on that thing?
And I put too much lead in it.
Like for whatever reason, it was way worse working on it.
Like driving it, you just, you're in there
and now it is what it is.
So let's go.
Do you think when you look at the funny,
all the guys racing in a funny car
and we run, Jason and I run into this all the time
when we start talking about who we think is going to win
top to bottom.
It feels like you say this every year,
but I think it just, it gets better and better and better
top to bottom.
How many guys do you think legitimately have a shot
to win a funny car race every time you roll
up to a national event?
Easily 12.
So there's probably now, probably 13,
have a real legit, you know, you can look at it and go,
oh, if something happens, that guy could win
or that girl could win any day,
but if something happens here, you know,
you could do that.
But I say legitimately top 13,
and what's proxing points right now?
Is prox 12th or 13th?
He's like, he's like, he's just creeped in the top 16,
like 13th or 14th, yeah.
Yeah, see what I'm saying?
Like when Austin fricking prox is 13th,
the 13 top cars have a chance to win a damn race.
That's, that's,
And that's just nuts.
I mean, it's, you look over the history of funny car,
the dominance of beetle, the dominance of prud'em,
the dominance of force.
At that time, there truly were only four or five guys
that could do, could really be like, oh, that, you know,
and now you, how cool is that?
Like when you're in that mix.
It's kind of cool, but I will say too,
that like when I first started racing,
you didn't get a layup first round most of the times.
Yeah.
So Phoenix, I got to race Jack Beckman first round.
It's like, well, what's going on here?
So yeah, it's cool when you walk in,
you're like, oh, that's neat.
We could all win the race.
We got a race.
There's no more ducks in the first round.
No more ducks.
Yeah.
It's like, yeah.
Like you said, there's no layups,
even if you are number one qualifier almost.
I mean, yeah, okay.
Like you said, you're, you can three people out,
but still number one qualifier has got to pay attention.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
And at a race like this, you know,
US nationals, you know, 1000 funny car race,
are there drivers that have ever come up to you
and, you know, giving you like a pep,
like as prud'em ever kind of come up to you and said,
hey, nice job.
Or like Bruce Larson or force, or, you know,
these guys at all.
Yeah.
Again, I don't, I'm not like the toot my own horn guy,
but literally everyone.
This show is built around just tooting your own horn.
So toot toot.
That should be the name of the show.
Life's a drag presented by tooting your own horn.
Toot toot.
So literally all three of those gentlemen
have come up to me and said something like,
way nicer than I deserve.
So yes.
And every time that happens, it's super humbling.
And I don't know, I don't know why this happens to me,
but every time I think about, you know,
all of the nice things.
So this one time I was racing in Caps at St. Louis.
The thing was spinning the tires,
which I had never had happened to me at like 800 feet
spinning the tires.
And I was like, I don't see him.
So I'm gonna hold my foot on the floor
and it like just moved over really bad.
Okay.
So I was like, Hey, Ron.
And I'm just used to everyone being like, you did good.
Good try buddy.
So I get up like, Hey, Ron.
Sorry about that, pal.
And he goes, yeah, what happened there?
And I was like, oh, sorry.
I don't know.
I don't know, sir.
Sorry, sir.
And I like wondering off, but no, Caps is a cool dude.
I have a good time with Caps now.
He's, he's awesome.
Do you have a, do you have, you know,
Pradome for me is like Taylor Swift
for like 12 year old girls.
Like he's the guy that just like,
so have you had a cool Pradome interaction
or Kenny Bernstein interaction or anything like that?
He literally did, did the thing that Pradome does
that you're like, you fangirl over.
Like he literally is just like, Hey kid,
you're doing a good job.
And that was enough.
Right.
That's like your knees, your knees kind of buckle.
I was like, me?
I was like, is Jordan Baker gonna stay behind me?
Right.
No, me?
Oh listen, I had that interaction with Don Pradome
two years ago in Indy and he was at the bar
and there was nobody at the bar in Indy
and he was sitting there eating
and I just sat down kind of near him and he goes,
Hey, you're that guy that plays all that music
does all those dumb games.
He goes, you're doing a good job, man.
I go, I go, what?
The coolest guy on the planet just recognized me.
I was like, there we go.
That's so yeah, that is fun.
And Tony Stewart did the same thing to me.
Except he came, I'm like, dude, stop it.
You guys got to stop.
I'm not that great.
You want to hear a good Tony Stewart story?
Oh, for a hundred percent, of course.
So it's actually really quick too.
So we were at Phoenix.
I was still working on Chad's car.
So whatever year that was, I'm bad at the years.
I need my stat guy.
So we were at Phoenix and Tim had ran dynamite.
He went like 85, 86, 87 or something
and he decided to skip the last qualifying run.
So he just, he's like, I don't know.
What am I going to do?
Go 85 again?
Who cares?
So he skips the last one.
He's standing on the starting line
and he's standing in the crew chief driver owner area.
And a security guard comes over and he said,
hey, you one of those?
Tim goes, yep.
And he goes to watch the race
and the guy goes, well, what one are you?
And then Tony Stewart come over and said,
all of them, bro, you can leave him alone.
He's like, he's, yes, yes, he's that.
All those, he basically created that banner for this guy.
Yeah, this is him.
You should take it home and hang it up.
But the guy recognized Tony Stewart.
He did not recognize Tim Wilkerson,
but Tony Stewart was able to change them in the crowd.
Using Tony Stewart as your credential.
That's a ball of Tim Wilkerson.
That's so great.
I love it.
That's what makes drag racing so good.
It's so much fun.
We're going to shift gears.
Easter was this past weekend.
How much candy do you still have
in your possession from Easter?
Brother, I still got candy from Halloween.
So you know, oh my God, it's ridiculous.
So yeah, we have a ton of candy still from,
and it was my boy's birthday is March 27th
and my baby girl's is April 12th
and mine's April 2nd.
So we had birthday cake on top of all the candy.
It was ridiculous.
It was sugar high at the Wilkerson household
has to be epic.
My boy was nuts for a while.
He crashed hard though.
Luckily, because he did go to sleep.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you can't recycle Halloween candy
because it's not pastel color.
Yeah, you can't recycle.
You got to just, yeah.
Did you guys do an Easter egg hunt?
We did.
So my dear sweet wife is really good
at coordinating important things like that
because I was like, oh, we're going over to Tim's.
I want to ride four wheelers around or something,
you know, because all race car guys came over too.
So I was like, Easter and my boy's birthday,
a time for men stuff.
We're going to go get some four wheelers,
we're going to blow some stuff up.
Yeah, we're going to go Rex and stuff.
And my wife was like, puppy breaks, pal, it's Easter.
So we should do this Easter egg hunt.
So they did that too.
They scattered some eggs around the front yard
and one of the crew guys has a little boy,
he's three.
So we had a, they were over there and had a good time.
Did your wife make you wear a special Easter outfit?
Because I remember her.
She, very rarely does she do this, but she goes,
hey, do you think maybe we could dress like adults today?
I don't know if what.
I'm guessing that means no all black clothes.
It was probably nothing branded.
It was nothing branded and no black dickies.
So yeah, I actually, yep, I dressed like an adult.
And to my, I'll say it's a surprise.
All the race car guys were also wearing their Sunday vest.
I thought, oh sure, yeah.
We went to, we went to Wilmington this past weekend
and it was a full on shock to my family
that I was not wearing a drag race bracket bonanza hat.
Cause I wore one to the IndyCar race
and Abby was like, well at least you're on brand.
And so they're like,
oh, you don't have a drag race bracket bonanza hat.
And then they didn't know I had,
Prudhomme gave me a snake hat, the snake logo.
So that's what I was wearing.
And then they were like,
oh, you're sure I'm wearing a bracket bonanza hat.
And then Abby's like, yeah, that's a dumb Prudhomme hat.
He's really not too far like.
It's very parallel.
Very parallel.
I just don't have generic hats.
I mean, I have Steeler hats.
I have Mizzou hats.
I have a George Washington hat
like my cure, my kids went to school,
bracket bonanza hats.
Yeah.
I have a Hendricks.com hat that I got.
But who has just generic, I mean, a generic hat.
Do you have, do you have a non racing hat
in your position, Dan?
No, no, I was even gonna say,
I bet it within arm's reach.
Yeah, here we go.
This is a good hat.
Hang on a second.
Look at that.
That's a too fast, too tasty winter hat right there.
Oh yeah, see, that's a good hat.
That's a great hat.
These are the, these are the.
But again, you know, it's greasy.
Yeah.
I've got, let's see if I don't know if I can get the,
I mean, I have all my hats on my little wheel up there
and over the years and stuff.
And I was actually going to go through them
because I was like,
I haven't even looked at those hats in a while.
Yeah.
You should go through and see,
you know, cause then I've got like this hat hanging there.
That's a TJ Zizzo's first number one qualifier.
And he was nice enough to give me a
number one qualifier hat.
That is phenomenal.
I would not have given that.
I would have found.
Oh, I'll be keeping all our hats.
Thank you.
Right.
Again, that was kind of back in the olden times
when you got quite a few.
Oh, and there's 50 hats.
Okay.
I don't want to be like Ron Capps, like,
I don't know if you saw Ron Capps on Joe's deal
where he's talking about the children.
Sometimes the NHRA sometimes goes a little cheap on it.
I don't mean to throw anybody under the bus
and we're like, God dang it, Capps, come on.
He's like, they weren't cheap this time.
I heard that.
I mean, that's really good.
Give me a trouble.
Do you have anything like that,
like whether it's mementos from your career
or other career, like, is there like an item that you have
that you're like super special for you, Dan?
So back to like your idols,
just randomly being super sweet to you.
I have a hat that John Force signed
to my baby girl when she was a week old.
He gave me like a hat and like he had a little
like baby present package and it had my hat.
And it said, actually, I almost confused
of a picture I have he signed for me in the hat,
but it says something about congratulations, baby girl,
you got a good dad.
And then I have a picture from like third round
I ever made in a fourth round I ever made
in a fuel car was against John Force.
And he signed it just like your dad.
I was like, wow.
I know you have had to tell the story
number times, was that the night under fire race?
Sure was.
Yes, it was.
Jason, have you heard the story?
Uh-uh, I want to hear it now.
Oh, okay.
Do you mind telling the story again?
Cause it's all time.
I love telling these stories.
So like Dan said, this was like his,
well, tell the story like it's not under fire.
All right, we'll start from the beginning.
How much time we got?
We got all the time that we got.
All right.
So it's a hot summer's day in Chicago
and we need to make license runs to get my license.
You're supposed to make three.
The first one I make, I go 498,
298 mile an hour, quarter mile.
Second round I make, we go five flat,
301 mile an hour.
And I had just in my alcohol car with 565 and 250
the day before.
So they said, you know what?
Seen all we needed to see.
Here's your funny car license.
I was like, ooh, heck yeah.
So a week goes by,
Vader calls Tim in a panic.
Somebody dropped out of the night of fire.
I need another car for the night of fire.
Night under fire.
Tim's like, well, my kid's got his license.
Sweet.
Can you just come do a burnout?
I just need an eighth car.
You don't gotta do nothing crazy.
Tim's like, no, we'll drag it over there.
We'll make some more runs.
So we go to this thing.
The first round I make, I go 488, like 318.
I'm like second low of the night under fire,
which is frankly kind of a career highlight by itself
because that's something motor sports park race
is like a big deal.
There's a lot of, it's sold out every year.
You know, the dollar ice cream back there.
It was a whole, it was a whole ordeal and it was awesome.
So we kind of accidentally stole a show.
Well, the fastest car was Ashley Force.
So Force comes up, be bopping up to me.
He's like, hey man, how many runs you made at night?
I said, none.
He goes, what?
That's a third run I've ever made in my entire life
right there that you just saw.
Pretty cool, huh?
And I go be bopping off and I go work on my car.
And Force did not think that was cool.
So Force was like, Mr. Bader,
which so if there's one person in America
that can change Bill Bader's show,
it's John Force apparently.
So John Force is like, hey man,
I don't want my kid running, Tim's kid.
He seems like he's a good dude
but he never run at night before.
I can't have it.
You think I could sub in?
I'll run him.
So Bader, being the entertainment genius he is,
did a great job spinning it.
So because he said, you know,
the old man wants a piece of the kid.
The kid made the second best run
and he wants to take him down.
The old man said, no, I want to do it.
So he spun it, it was like a whole big thing.
And then I read it.
But it actually made a cool picture
because since I read it, I was ahead of him
in the picture.
You can't see the tree in the picture.
All you can see is me.
Perception is reality, everyone.
That's awesome.
That's a great story.
Oh dude, it was all time.
All right.
Speaking of all trinkets and trash and stuff like that,
you think John Force could become like the,
what's his name?
What's the guy from Kiss?
Gene Simmons of the Drag Race and World.
It just started putting out John Force stuff
and just selling stuff at the track.
I'm sure.
Like a John Force casket?
That'd be cool.
Yeah, all of it, whatever.
Yeah, there's no doubt.
The volume, per year of Force of 2027,
it'll be all Force all the time.
Oh yeah.
All right.
Yes, it should.
It should.
It should.
So Dan, good luck this weekend.
Thank you so much for the stories.
Cannot wait to see you in a couple of days.
I'll work on getting Tim all his appearances.
Yep, you're going to make sure he hits them all.
I'm going to make, yeah, because.
He's going to need someone when, you know,
kind of like, I nag him, right?
So now, when I say it, it doesn't, it goes,
any one of you are out the other.
I'll just tell him if he doesn't, if he doesn't,
every event he doesn't show up to this part of the 1,000
credit card, I'm going to add a $200 to my invoice
that I sent him.
That's perfect.
Yeah.
And he will, that will speed him right up.
First of all, he'll be like, why is this guy
continuing to send me invoices?
I don't work with him.
And I keep trying to just slide him through.
My last great story is when I worked for Tim, you know,
he's a man on a budget.
And he was like, OK, I need you to work with me.
He goes, but I can't, this is, you know, I go, that's fine.
I go, I'll do for your rate.
I go, but if you win, I want to kick her.
And that was the year that he won four times.
He hadn't won in like the previous five years.
And then that year, he went on a heater and won like four times.
He won due to us nationals.
And it was so funny because he would send me a send the invoice
and I'd put on there, you know, win bonus X amount of dollars.
And then he would send me like the check and it would come
like check at the top and like the form at the bottom
like where you tear it off.
And he would always write like a very funny message on there.
Like, I was screwing him.
He won. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm getting like a sliver of pie.
He's still getting the whole big pie, but he was it was it made my day
every time I get an open up.
But I was like, what is the message going to be this time?
Yeah. Well, I guess my dog doesn't get to eat dinner tonight.
Because it was literally like that.
I was like, you know, I guess, you know, Christmas presents for the grandkids
this year, because you're just screwing me on this.
That sounds all right.
But yeah, that's the greatness of Tim Wilkerson.
Dan, thank you so much for joining us.
Like I said, good luck this weekend.
Good luck, Dan. Thank you.
We'll see you in a couple minutes.
You know, we're pulling for you here.
So let's go for sure. 100%.
I appreciate you guys.
Thank you very much.
See you.
All right, man.
There you go.
Dan Wilkerson, that guy's the best.
We love him.
He's the hell not out.
We're talking about him.
Go wait, Dan.
All right.
All right, you want to pay some bills when you come back?
Yes, sir. Let's do it.
All right, here we go.
And away we go.
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All right, sorry I was distracted.
All right, everybody in the comments, good job.
Everybody loves Daniel Wilkerson.
Yes, who doesn't love Daniel Wilkerson?
And shout out to the people in the comments.
Let's keep liking and sharing the show.
Would love to get more people watching, sharing the show
and all that good stuff.
So what all have we not covered yet?
We got the Daniel Wilkerson and you.
All right, so Dan Wilkerson, we talk
on all funny cars all the time.
What about hood scoops?
Hood scoops back to pro stock.
Hood scoops coming back to pro stock.
I'm a fan of that, because I think that looks cool.
I agree.
When you've got mountain motor pro stock at the races,
you're like, oh, that's what they used to look like.
That's what they used to look like.
And I just don't know what that means to the teams.
I mean, obviously, myself, I'm
assuming they had to agree to it in some way, shape, form,
or fashion.
But these guys have been working on getting
their cars going super, super fast and quick.
That's got to be such a dramatic change for them that.
Well, I was reading that thing with the whole EFI changeover.
And now going back to the hood scoops
is going to be easier to tune these cars for the not
the elites and KV guys, right?
I guess they're going to be able to adjust the hood scoop
size.
Yeah.
It's going to be kind of Wild Wild West, which I kind of like.
And they got a whole year to figure it out.
That's certainly the thing.
Yeah, this is 2027.
That's going to be some of these guys
are going to be able to have a test car to sort that stuff
out.
No, flat hoods.
Dane Cruchy is whining about the air.
Oh, look at this guy.
I love it.
Oh, yeah.
I love when people fire up back at guys like that.
Exactly.
And you know, with the way elite and KV go at it.
And they've got all the cars, the majority of the cars.
So they're going to have a bigger voice in that meeting.
And they're all going to figure it out.
They figured out the EFI.
They figured it out also.
You can tell those guys, they have
to start running with a kid seat
strapped to the roof.
Right.
They would figure out how to make those cars go.
Could you imagine?
Oh, hey, I left my purse on the hood.
Sorry.
That's like, remember when we used to run pro stock trucks
and even ask for trucks?
To me, if you're going to run trucks,
you have to run with at least one loose item
in the truck bed.
Yeah, I agree.
Holding chair, cooler, toolbox, kind of like,
fret now, but you're going to have racing trucks.
Let's put some stuff in the back of them.
I love that.
That is so cool.
Yeah, I remember when I first came out,
that we had pro stock trucks.
And then when I came back out, I said, hey,
what happened to pro stock trucks?
I mean, it was like, yeah, it was like, you know,
those things like you see, like the Chick-fil-A logo,
used to have this in it, but now it doesn't.
It was like, does nobody want to even remember
that we did pro stock trucks?
They don't, yeah.
Because I think there was like a big lawsuit
because they created this class and all these guys invested
in it and then it just kind of went away.
And yeah, it was a big thing.
Yeah, I'm saying.
Larry Morgan can tell you all about it, I bet.
Yeah, I'll talk to him about it.
All right, so yeah, so hood scoops.
Yep.
You've got, you know, staying at,
oh, we got to talk, winter nationals, Pomona.
You know what that means?
Yeah, cocoa pumps.
Cocoa pumps.
You got it.
Quite possibly might be my favorite place to eat on tour.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's so good.
We found a while ago, Joe, and I found this Cuban place
right next to the Pomona Miney company.
Yeah.
That's also a tremendous place to eat.
Also really good.
But we couldn't get in there, so we went over to this Cuban
place and it looks like Tony Montanen's inside.
It's straight up, straight out of Scarface.
Yeah, it's so great.
And there's always some quincean
year or something going on in there over there.
Always.
But it's so good.
It's so good.
But shout out, return to Jocosello this weekend.
Yes, Jocosello will be back.
Very, very excited about that.
And so we, I don't get in town until Friday,
so maybe, obviously cocoa pumps has to be Friday
or Saturday night, because I leave,
I'm coming out on a red eye on Sunday.
Oh, I'm doing a red eye, too.
A quick trip for me.
Yeah, I'm doing a red eye on it.
I love the West Coast races where you can kind of get
in early on, Friday morning, and then get out on Sunday night.
Yeah, maybe we're on the same flight,
because I think I connect through Dallas.
Oh, no, I'm connecting through Charlotte.
Never mind, on the way back.
Oh, you're going through, like, LA to Charlotte?
Yeah.
That's a legit.
That's a big one.
That's why I could sleep in, because I don't want to just
wake up after a three-hour flight to Dallas.
I connect to Dallas on the way out,
but when I get there up there, what else we got?
Yeah, there's so many good places to eat out there.
Joe took me to roast beef place or pastrami place.
Oh, yeah, the pit or the, what's, yeah.
It was okay.
Yeah, I could go maybe there again.
Really, cocoa pumps is the way.
Also, hopefully, a Bravo Burger is back open
since it was under construction on White Avenue.
If you get a chance, when you're coming up White Avenue
towards Pomona before you get to the Tin,
Bravo Burger on the left-hand side.
Okay.
On Sunday, on the mornings of the races,
it's a who's who of drivers in there.
Okay, it's a race good time.
I saw Dallas.
Dallas got a burrito the size of his head one time.
Oof, that's what I'm talking about.
So, yeah, we got In-N-Out Burger as well,
so that's In-N-Out Burger, Del Taco.
Shout out to race guitar guy for Del Taco.
Yeah.
Del Taco, where I inadvertently ordered
my first impossible meat item.
I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing
and I got it and it was terrible.
Yeah, I've had one before just because I'm like,
all right, let me try it.
It's not, it's not the worst,
I didn't think it was the worst thing,
but it wasn't the best thing.
Yeah.
I was like, I'm not eating that again.
Speaking of eating, so I asked you,
what would your master's meal be?
Oh, yes, so what do you think?
For sure, for the appetizer,
fried calamari and chips and queso.
All right, I like that.
And then wedge salad.
Wedge salad, definitely.
As you know, because I'm a wedge salad connoisseur.
Yeah.
And then for my entree,
because I think they give them entree choices.
Yes.
I would for sure do, as you know,
porterhouse.
Yep.
Yep.
And then,
some kind of like,
oh, I would, this is,
this would make the master chefs a little crazy,
but I would make the, like a chicken
that is like the pork chop deal
to have at Bonefish Grill.
Like a chicken with like a cheese and onion kind of.
Little fontina on top of that.
But yeah.
And then for dessert, it would 1,000% be
like a really kick-ass bread pudding.
Ooh, good call of the bread pudding.
With like a Jack Daniel sauce and cinnamon ice cream.
Yeah.
There's a local joint here that has cinnamon ice cream
that is
bbam.
So I like that.
I like that a lot.
So that's what it would be.
What about you?
I like that.
See, I like the appetizer.
This is what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna go,
I'm gonna go,
what's the place?
St. Elmo's,
Oh yeah, the shrimp cocktail with the crazy St. Elmo's.
We're going there just to bother people.
Then definitely a wedge salad
or maybe a nice Caesar salad.
You could go that route,
but it'll be interesting.
You get that garbage salad from Pierrot's.
That's what we're doing.
Garbage salad from Pierrot's.
Okay, that's perfect.
Good call.
That's that salad's so good.
We'll go there
and then let's stick with Pierrot's.
I'm gonna do that Ville Parmesan.
Oh yeah.
That Ville Parmesan.
And then as a,
if you don't want the Ville,
we'll go with a nice like grouper,
like a blackened grouper.
You can go,
we'll give you that.
Because I love them so much,
I'm gonna do banana splits.
Everybody gets a banana split for dessert.
Oh, see,
I'm not,
I may need to revisit the banana split.
It's been a while.
There was a time I didn't like
multiple flavored ice creams.
Oh, see, yeah.
So you got to like the multiple flavored ice cream.
Yeah, the,
yeah, I love it.
Everybody thinks loving when we talk about food.
Bread pudding, Montreal equals pudding a whole hall
with real strength.
There you go.
I like the three.
I'm here for that.
Cause that's another item that I like to just,
if it's on your menu,
go garbage salad, Monica.
Oh my gosh, Monica.
Stop what you're doing right now.
Buy a plane, take it to Las Vegas.
Pierrot's is right by the convention center.
And it is,
it's like a Caesar salad.
Right.
With artichoke hearts and shrimp.
Yes.
And whatever sauce they've got.
You know, unicorn dust,
I don't know what they put in there,
but it is so good.
And that veal parmesan there,
it's the size of a.
It's the size of a home plate.
It's the size of a regulation major league
baseball home plate.
It is so good though.
And if you don't order it,
the servers they're like,
what's your problem?
What are you doing?
Yeah. Why are you even here?
Well, I hear you have other great things to eat.
No, no, no.
This is what you get.
It comes, obviously it's plated,
but the plate they bring it.
I'm not kidding you is the platter
that comes with your 12 piece place setting.
Yes.
It's not a normal 10 to 12 inch plate.
It's the like the 18 inch in length platter.
Yeah. And the last time we went,
we couldn't,
Elon and I shockingly couldn't finish all of it
because we all three got it.
And Joe was there with us
and Joe took it on the plane with him.
He took our leftovers on the plane
and ate it for the rest of them.
Because we hit for the cycle
because we started with the stone crab claws.
Yeah.
And then the garbage salad
and then all the bread.
And it was just like by the time that we got to it.
Oh, because I also think we want,
we stopped eating the entree
because we wanted to get some dessert.
Yeah. It was like now it would,
that was the bad call.
Is that what the kids are calling it now?
Unicorn dust.
We call this.
I don't know.
That's my go-to secret ingredient
for anything that's good that's happening.
I used to talk about that all the time
like it forced me to crash this car
and then it wouldn't run around.
Well, it's because we broke the,
broke the chassis.
Pardon me.
And all the unicorn dust spilled out.
That was, that was the,
that was the go-to ingredient for me.
Unicorn dust.
Yeah.
The boat house people are like,
oh, because we pull the cars up
and then they,
it's on a turntable and it spins around.
It's like people on vacation,
they just lose their minds.
They don't pay attention.
They sat there for an hour watching the thing work
and they just like,
now they're in the car.
They're like, oh, how's this happened?
I'm like, it's pixie dust.
Yeah. You didn't see Taker Belkin over here
and Sprinkle on top?
Yeah.
People are weird.
I'm speaking of that.
I got to go to work.
All right.
I got to go drive people around.
But I'll see you in Pomona this weekend.
See you in Pomona.
Oh, tune in real quick.
Also, shout out.
Finish your pro stock,
major moments brackets.
They're open right now.
Oh, yes.
Sign up for Drag Race Bracket Bonanza.
And I saw some people made some comments
about some missing moments.
Sorry about that.
But yeah, dragracebracketbonanza.com.
Top, your pro stock, major moments
are live until Friday.
But appreciate everybody listening.
Appreciate everybody sharing the show,
all the comments.
Thank you.
We'll be back next Wednesday recapping
what I'm assuming to be
an incredibly exciting
international 1000 funny car race.
Right.
That'd be awesome.
Thank you.
We'll see you guys again.
If you missed half the show,
go back and watch it.
Go back, watch it, share it,
get on it.
All right.
We'll see you guys in Pomona.
This is WFO Radio.
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