Tim Essick has attended the World Cup Finals (WCF) numerous times, and last year he won the Outlaw vs Extreme class with a brand new car. Coming into this year, Essick has actual data to look at and he’s ready to make some tweaks to his Mustang to improve his performance even more.

Running the gauntlet of international competitors is a tough task during the WCF, and as a racer you will see many different combinations as eliminations unfold. The Outlaw vs Extreme class is the fastest eliminator at the eventfilled with five and six-second cars so just making the field is a challenge. Essick is preparing for the 2019 WCF by taking a hard look at what he learned last year to build a master plan that will lead him to victory.

“The biggest thing I’m looking at are ways to refine the car, the transmission, and the engine for the event. We found some stuff in the transmission and converter that we could make improvements on for this year. Last year we just made some tuning adjustments to keep the car happy the last half of the track since I didn’t have any data on it. Now that I have that data and have learned from it we will be able to come up with a faster overall package,” Essick says.

If there’s one thing that Essick has learned over the years in competing at the WCF is that it takes more than horsepower to go rounds and win. It’s a very long race that is hard on equipment so you have to race smart from the beginning, and that mindset is what’s guiding Essick’s race strategy once again.

“There’s a lot of qualifiers and a lot of rounds of racing at this event and the majority of the time the winner is the person who can just survive until the end. From my perspective, you must race smart if you want to make it to the end. We never made a full lick last year, I just ran the car as hard as I needed to each pass to get the win so it would stay together. There are some of these teams that bring multiple engines to make it the entire weekend; that right there tells you how hard this event really is to win,” Essick explains.

The possibility of winning back-to-back Outlaw vs Extreme titles at the WCF is one reason that Essick is coming back; the other is the opportunity to race in front of a massive crowd. Out of all the events that Essick attends each year, the WCF provides an atmosphere that makes every racer feel like they’re on the biggest stage the sport has to offer.

“This is just a big event and it brings things to a whole new level racing in front of these big crowds at the WCF. MDIR is a top-notch facility and seeing those stands packed makes me feel like I’m racing on Fox Sports at an NHRA event. It’s a great feeling to race in front of all those people, and to hear them rooting for you is amazing,” Essick says.

You can watch Tim Essick race in front of a packed house during the World Cup Finals at MDIR and see if he will repeat as a champion of the Outlaw vs Extreme class. All of the racing will be shown live on SpeedVideo RIGHT HERE October 30 – November 3.

This broadcast is brought to you by presenting sponsor ProCharger along with ATI Performance Products, American Racing Headers, Driven Racing Oil, WELD Racing, Race Star Wheels, Brisk USA Spark Plugs, Texas Speed & Performance, Gforce Performance Engineering, OSTAR MOTORSPORTS, BoostLine, SPEC Clutch, McLeod Clutches, Nitrous Outlet, Livernois Motorsports & Engineering, Flying A Motorsports, and Bullet Race Engineering.