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<\/p>\nDaniel Wilkerson and the SCAG Power Equipment Ford Mustang team went to the quarterfinals Sunday at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway. Teammates Dave Richards in the BlueBird Turf \/ Versatran Ford Mustang Funny Car and Justin Ashley in the SCAG Power Equipment Toyota Top Fuel dragster each had first round exits.<\/p>\n
Wilkerson and the SCAG Ford Mustang team started their day from the No. 9 qualifying spot thanks to a 3.934-second pass at 324.75 mph. Wilkerson lined up against Ford Performance teammate Bob Tasca III in the first round.<\/p>\n
Wilkerson left the starting line first and never trailed rallying to his quickest pass of the weekend at 3.919-seconds at 332.34 mph for the win while Tasca III ran into tire smoke and had to shut off for a 4.780 at 180.04.<\/p>\n
In the semifinal round, Wilkerson matched with veteran and former world champion Jack Beckman. The race was decided at the starting line with Wilkerson going -.013 red giving Beckman, who ran into tire smoke at the hit and coasted to a 7.659-second pass at 83.86 mph, the victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Saturday night I said if we could get our Friday night front half with our Saturday back half, we have a mid 3.80 -second car. I guess we\u2019ll never find out if that\u2019s the case here in Brainerd after the second-round mishap,\u201d Wilkerson said. \u201cI will go to my grave swearing that yellow light was on before I stepped on the gas. I heard Beckman next to me rev his car up, but I guess I just went on his throttle blip. Just a bizarre deal, I guess that\u2019s racing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe chipped away at our package, ran a bit faster and I\u2019m confident we will have something for them in Indy,\u201d Wilkerson continued. \u201cAppreciate the support of our SCAG Racing family, all our dealers and customers that came out, we had a great time as always and can\u2019t wait until we get to do it again and hopefully celebrate in the winners circle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Justin Ashley and the SCAG Toyota dragster team entered race day form the No. 9 qualifying position after they ran a 3.758-second pass at 332.84 mph in the final session on Saturday afternoon. The effort earned him a first-round pairing with veteran Clay Millican.<\/p>\n
Ashely would make his best run of the weekend with a 3.740-second pass at 332.84 mph, but it wasn\u2019t enough for Millican\u2019s 3.693 at 330.80. It is only the third time Ashley has had a first-round exit in 2025 and the first time since the NHRA Winternationals at the end of March.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery race is a challenge and this one in particular got the best of us,\u201d Ashley said. \u201cWe put a string of great races together in the middle of the year but have struggled a bit more than we would\u2019ve liked over the last few. That\u2019s okay. It\u2019s a process to be the best and that\u2019s what we are focused on. Mike Green, Tommy DeLago, Dustin Davis, and our whole SCAG team are dialed into running fast consistently. It\u2019s coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Racing from the No. 16 spot after struggling through qualifying, Dave Richards and the BlueBird Turf \/ Versatran team line up against veteran racer and former world champion Jack Beckman in the first round of eliminations.<\/p>\n
Richards would have a slight starting line advantage and make his best pass of the weekend crossing the finish line in 4.002-seconds at 319.90 mph but it wouldn\u2019t be enough for Beckman\u2019s 3.895 at 319.37 mph.<\/p>\n
\u201cStill working on fine tuning our set up. It\u2019s getting really close, and it makes me really excited for the future of this team. We\u2019re staying here tomorrow to test, which is exciting, hopefully we get some good laps and be ready for the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis in a few weeks,\u201d Richards said. \u201cToday was a good race for our team. We kept Beckman and that John Force Racing team honest, we would have been there if they had slipped up. Wasn\u2019t meant to be today but we\u2019re happy with the numbers we\u2019re seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on August 17, 2025. <\/p>\n
The post Daniel Wilkerson: \u201cThis One Got The Best of Us, But It\u2019s Coming\u201d<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Daniel Wilkerson and the SCAG Power Equipment Ford Mustang team went to the quarterfinals Sunday at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway. Teammates Dave Richards in the BlueBird Turf \/ Versatran Ford Mustang Funny Car and Justin Ashley in the SCAG Power Equipment Toyota Top Fuel dragster each had first round exits. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}