Rookie of the Year candidate Daniel Wilkerson and the SCAG Power Equipment Ford Mustang Funny Car team have already nearly met their goal of a top 5 finish in the Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series. A win at this weekend’s Ford Performance NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the penultimate event of the 2024 season, would be the cherry on top of an already strong first season.
Wilkerson and the SCAG Mustang team are currently sixth in the Funny Car points standings, just 88 points out of the No. 5 position. In the Countdown to the Championship, NHRA’s playoffs, Wilkerson has worked his way up from the No. 10 spot after a first-round loss at the first of the six races in Reading, Pennsylvania.
Back-to-back quarterfinal finishes at the Carolina Nationals just outside of Charlotte and at his hometown Midwest Nationals at World Wide Technology Raceway just outside of St. Louis put Wilkerson and the SCAG Mustang team eighth. Most recently, Wilkerson raced his way to the third semifinal finish of the season for the SCAG Ford team at the Texas NHRA FallNatioanls that moved them into sixth in the points.
“I can’t wait to represent Ford Performance at their own race this weekend. We got to do one of my favorite things on Wednesday. Ford had their customer race and we got to send folks down the dragstrip in Ford Mustangs. It was so fun to see their reactions and I know more than a handful of them will be back this weekend,” said Wilkerson. “Tim has a pretty good combination to run up in Las Vegas too, so I can’t wait to see what he and the guys put together for this weekend.
“At the beginning of the year I said this is a Top 5 car and we would be disappointed with anything less. With the race for first pretty much over with we have set our sights in the tight battle for fifth,” Wilkerson continued. “We need our fellow Ford Performance racer to go out a little earlier than we would normally like him to, but with the way our car is running I think it’s in the cards for our SCAG boys to end up in the winners circle. And that would make the NHRA Finals in Pomona, California very interesting.”
The Ford Performance NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway kicks off with four rounds of qualifying Friday at 1:30 and 4:00 p.m. and Saturday at 1:30 and 4:00 p.m. Eliminations are slated to begin Sunday at 11:00 a.m. Television coverage of the event will be on FOX Sports 1 (FS1) with a qualifying show Sunday at 3:00 p.m. ET followed by an eliminations show at 5:00 p.m. ET.
This story was originally published on November 1, 2024. 
