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Photo by Bob Frye

by Bob Wilber
Del Worsham, driver of the Checker-Schuck's-Kragen/Auburn Foundry Pontiac Firebird Funny Car, will be behind the wheel of a new race car beginning at the Mopar Parts Nationals. Del and his father, Chuck, the team's crew chief and co-owner, ordered a new chassis from Victory Race Cars. The move to the new chassis will coincide with the team's introduction of the first of their 1998 Firebird bodies, which will be mounted to fit the new Victory car for the Englishtown debut. The team had been running a 1997 Firebird atop a Worsham chassis. Oddly, all this takes place fresh on the heels of the team's best outing in years, which included five consecutive runs of 5.10 or better, highlighted by Worsham's first four-second run, at the Castrol Lone Star Nationals in Dallas.

"The chassis we built has great potential," said Del Worsham, "and the results from Dallas prove that. But we still think we're right on the edge of what that car could do, it took a perfect run to post the 4.98. To keep improving, and to win races, we need the Victory car. We need that consistency.

"We owe it to Checker-Schuck's-Kragen and our other sponsors to be as competitive as possible, so after Houston we made the decision to buy the Victory chassis and put the other chassis program on the shelf. We also just got the first of our new 1998 Firebirds, so we should have a whole new look in New Jersey. People have asked if we're going to change our minds now, what with the 4.98, but the answer is no. We have to keep moving."

Chuck Worsham was pleased with the end result of the latest Worsham chassis, but also knew it was time to make a move.

"By Atlanta we finally got it straightened out and ran a lot better, leading up to all the good numbers in Dallas. But we put ourselves in a big hole getting this car sorted out," he said. "Actually, this works out well for us. Now that we're happy with our current chassis, it means we'll have a back-up car in the trailer that we won't hesitate to bring out if we need it."

The team is currently booked to run a match race in Phoenix between the Dallas and Englishtown events, and hopes to be able to test the new car at that time.