Accounting for success: Daniel Wilkerson moves into NHRA crew chief role

Though only 35 years old, Daniel Wilkerson has seen and experienced just about everything in drag racing.

The son of NHRA Funny Car driver Tim Wilkerson has stepped out of the shadow of his famous and successful father. He’s forged his own path after emerging out of his own Funny Car and becoming a crew chief for Funny Car driver Chad Green, of Midland, Texas.

In his second year as Green’s crew chief in their first full year running a full-time NHRA schedule, Green and Wilkerson are fifth in the Funny Car standings through 18 of 21 events.

“I didn’t really ever think I’d get to do it,” Daniel Wilkerson said. “Obviously, it’s a huge passion of mine but I have a wife and two kids so I have to make money, first off. I could only really do it if there was an opportunity to work for somebody who needed somebody to run a team, basically. When the opportunity came up, it was a chance I could not pass up.”

Disappointing Sunday for Wilkersons

Green held onto his fifth-place spot in the standings despite prematurely deploying his parachute in the first round of eliminations against Alex Laughlin on Sunday at the NHRA Midwest Nationals held at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison.

After Tim Wilkerson lost a close first-round race to Ron Capps, father and son were left to pack up their cars into the trailers and head back home to Springfield up I-55. Tim Wilkerson sits seventh, 11 points behind sixth-place J.R. Todd and one point ahead of eighth-place Alexis DeJoria.

Inside Tim Wilkerson’s shop, located behind Wilkerson’s Service Center on Stevenson Drive, sit both Green’s and Wilkerson’s dragsters. There, crews work diligently on every nook and cranny in advance of the next race.

“This is our first year we’ve had another car run out of our stable for the entire year and that’s helped both of us,” the elder Wilkerson said. “From time to time, that makes their car better and makes my car better because we have somebody else to talk to.

“Daniel and I talk after every run; it gives us some data on what we thought would happen, did it happen and will it happen again.”

Challenging beginning

To add a second car to the Wilkerson stable wasn’t completely foreign to them. Daniel drove part-time while maintaining a job as an accountant for Springfield firm Eck, Schafer & Punke.

He’s best remembered for a wicked crash in 2009 in Memphis.

Daniel's Ford Mustang body lost both rear wheels which sent him across the two lanes and nearly head-on into the left-side wall, barely missing his first-round opponent, Ron Capps. He slammed into the wall which folded the entire front end of the car and destroyed the chassis. Daniel walked away from the crash unscathed.

On Sunday, a fan approached Daniel with a photo of that aftermath and asked Daniel to sign the picture. The fan said he was at that Memphis race, sitting nearly in front of where Daniel’s car came to rest.

Daniel raced 14 times from 2009-2022. He had four round wins and his best points finish was 20th in 2020.

His decision to become a crew chief limits the risks but it can sometimes be just as frustrating.

Remember the supply-chain issues following the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic? That also crept into racing.

“(COVID) didn’t really hurt (the established teams) that bad because they had stock — they had three of everything they needed one of; we had none of everything we needed one of,” Daniel said. “The hardest part was just getting inventory.”

But what Daniel and Green had bundles of was information.

“When you have Tim’s book of knowledge, you have a huge encyclopedia to work off of, so we were able to hit the ground running when Chad decided to do this full-time.”

Gaining experience

Tim Wilkerson is his own crew chief. He’s proud of his son but knows that at 35 and a newer crew chief, Daniel still has a lot to learn.

“There’s a lot of things we make decisions on and he doesn’t have a good gut (feeling) yet,” Tim said of Daniel. “There’s a lot of gut feelings and sometimes you run on that.”

Daniel, though, said he’s getting there.

“For the most part when you struggle, you can see where you’re struggling,” Daniel said. “You leave (a race) and you go, ‘Oh, we should’ve done this, this or this instead of that.’ You always believe you can fix the thing.

“I would not go if I didn’t think we could win; I’d stay at home. The quality stuff we’ve got, the knowledge of Tim’s team, what he’s done in the past, I’ve got no doubts we can turn the win lights on at least a couple of times a year.”

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Accounting for racing

Daniel, a 2006 Rochester High School graduate, received a Master’s Degree in accounting from the University of Illinois Springfield in 2012.

His races would sometimes be discussed the next day over the water cooler at work — even if most other accountants couldn’t totally grasp Daniel’s side-gig.

“It’s hard to relate. It’s too far out of their world, almost,” Daniel said. “They think it’s cool, a lot of them watch on TV and some of them have been big fans of Tim’s forever or have been friends of Tim’s and have followed (the races).

“ You get a handful of people who follow it and think it’s really, really cool but until you drag somebody to one of these things, it’s impossible to get the whole sensation from TV. You’ve got to go to a race and once you go, you’re hooked.”

Tim Wilkerson studied civil engineering at Lincoln Land Community College. He said the math carried over to his business. Daniel got an upfront education in business accounting from his dad.

“Mostly, I hung out with him while he did his books and it was kind of interesting,” Daniel said. “Job security was my thing. When I became an accountant, I was like, ‘People are always going to need accountants.’

“It was something I could tolerate when I was working with him and he wanted me to explore something besides being a mechanic because he lived that life and he said, ‘You’re probably going to want to use your brains instead of your brawn.’”

Fortunately for Daniel, he gets to use both.

Contact Ryan Mahan: 788-1546, ryan.mahan@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/RyanMahanSJR.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Daniel Wilkerson trades in racing helmet for toolbelt