Fram Route 66 Nationals: Del Worsham Notes (Sunday)

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Del Worsham Notes and Quotes: Sunday, May 31, 1998

It has been well documented in these reports, as well as in countless other publications, that NHRA Winston Drag Racing is a sport in which the competitors are never any better than their last outing. "Hero to Zero" is the cliché most often heard, and Del Worsham drove home that point over the course of the previous two races, posting great results in Dallas (including his first 4-second pass) only to move on to Englishtown and a DNQ. Here at the magnificent new Route 66 Raceway, Worsham proved the cliché can work in the other direction as well.

Unable to test between this new event and the DNQ in New Jersey, the Worsham team made some adjustments to their new chassis at their Auburn, Indiana summer shop, and arrived in Joliet primed for improvement and trusting their experience. Three days, four qualifying passes, and four rounds of eliminations later, this group felt pretty darned good about what they had accomplished.

To summarize: This team arrived with a new car that had failed to run more than 300 feet in Englishtown. A 5.12 off the trailer here at Route 66 gave the team a huge confidence lift, and a 5.05 on Saturday set up a Round 1 battle with Cory Lee in the injured Tom Hoover's Pioneer Electronics Funny Car. Having run the 5.05 in the last session was even more crucial, as it sent to the team into Sunday feeling they were finding their car.

The Worsham/Lee battle was a great one, but when the clutch dust settled it was the Checker-Schuck's-Kragen team heading for Round 2, on the strength of a 5.11 pass on a track the likes of John Force, Tony Pedregon, and Dean Skuza could not negotiate (they all lost in Round 1 upsets.)

In Round 2, Cruz Pedregon lined up next to Del in Joe Gibbs' powerful Funny Car, and Del simply posted another 5.11 to send the #3 points contender to an early dinner.

Two rounds, two 5.1's, and here comes Jim Epler who had advanced all the way to the Finals in Englishtown during the previous race. Another 5.11? Nope, try a 5.06 and the announcement to the crowd that young Mr. Worsham would be in the finals of a national event for the first time since 1993. Whit Bazemore supplied the opposition.

This time, Del and Chuck Worsham made the conscious decision not to overstep the abilities of this new chassis, and they ignored the fact Bazemore had run a 4.96 in the semi's. Instead, the Worsham bunch aimed for a solid 5.0 to 5.03 run, and hoped to beat the Winston car with a holeshot.

It was not to be, however, as the Checker-Schuck's-Kragen car went up in tire smoke 200-feet off the starting line and Bazemore powered to a strong 5.00 (factoring in Worsham's holeshot on Bazemore, it would have taken a 5.02 to beat him.)

Yes, the disappointment of advancing all the way to the Finals only to come up second best was very real in the Worsham pit. But, the boost of recovering from the Englishtown DNQ to reassert themselves as real contenders was the overriding thought.

As Del summed it up, "We are back."

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