Shell Programming and Scripting

#
# version.cfg
#
version =   4.2.1.1.10  # 
"

The script seems to get the image name right but does not expand correctly in "ifeq ($(wildcard $(IMAGE_FILE)), )"

This is what I get:
"
IMAGE_FILE = ./images/release-4.2.1.1.10.tar.gz 
Makefile:19: *** No image file "./images"/release-`grep version ./version.cfg | grep "=" | cut -d'=' -f2 | sed -e 's/#.*//' -e 's/[ ^   ]*//' -e 's/\ .*//'`.tar.gz.  Stop.
"

This is my script:
==================
"
.PHONY: chkImage
VERSION_FILE := ./version.cfg
ifeq ($(wildcard $(VERSION_FILE)),)
    $(error $(nl-ht)No Version File $(VERSION_FILE) Exists) 
endif
ImageRoot := "./images"
Version := `grep version $(VERSION_FILE) | grep "=" | cut -d'=' -f2 |   \
                    sed -e 's/\#.*//' -e 's/[ ^ ]*//' -e 's/\ .*//'`
Image := release-$(Version).tar.gz
IMAGE_FILE := $(ImageRoot)/$(Image)

all: chkImage

chkImage:
        @printf "IMAGE_FILE = $(IMAGE_FILE) \n"
ifeq ($(wildcard $(IMAGE_FILE)), )
    $(error $(nl-ht)No image file $(IMAGE_FILE))
endif
"