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DALLAS (September 18, 2007) -- Although most of the public's attention has been recently focused on the eight pro teams in each Countdown To The Championship playoff hunt, discerning followers of the sport of NHRA POWERade Drag Racing may have noticed another familiar name creeping into their consciousness. Del Worsham may be in 9th place, and outside the Countdown field, but he's back in the swing of things with his red Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Impala, and it appears a race victory may yet be in his 2007 future.
Though he missed the playoffs by two rounds, Worsham has not let that disappointment affect him or his team. Their nine round wins in the last six races point to a solid race car, as well as a newly confident driver, and Worsham couldn't think of a better place to compete than the Texas Motorplex, where the NHRA tour convenes for this weekend's O'Reilly Fall Nationals.
"It's a great track, all concrete, and a great facility that has Billy Meyer's stamp all over it," Worsham said. "Everything about the Motorplex is great, and it's always a fun race to come to. We've had all kinds of success there, from making our first-ever 4-second run in 1998, to winning there twice, in 2002 and 2004. I love the Motorplex, and I can't wait to get to the track on Friday.
"If the weather people are right, we're going to have a hot and sunny one on our hands this weekend, which is going to put a lot of pressure on everybody in terms of the Friday night session. If it's going to be 95 on Saturday, you don't want to mess up on Friday night. As long as we do our job during the night session, I think we'll be in great shape, because we feel good about our hot weather tune-up and think we can run with anybody."
Worsham's deeds have backed up his words of late, with those nine recent round wins coming against a variety of big-time players. After taking out Tommy Johnson in round one at Seattle, Worsham has since earned the win light while racing against current Countdown performers Ron Capps, Robert Hight, and Gary Scelzi. In addition to those victories, he has managed other outstanding wins over Ashley Force (twice), Tony Bartone, and his teammate, Jeff Arend (also twice). This has been no streak of luck or walk-overs, but much more a two-month stretch of seriously solid racing for the red CSK team.
"It's really too bad we got messed up with all that parts breakage in the first half of the season, because it really slowed us down and kept us off our stride," Worsham said. "When you're blowing your car up so badly it gets you on CNN, you tend to focus more on survival than success, but we've got all that behind us now and we're running great.
We can't win the championship, and we can't even finish 8th in points, but we can win races and we still plan to do that.
"It would be easy to compare the current points deal with what might have been, had we not changed the format, but there's no point in that.
Like I've said before, we all knew the format and we all knew the cut-off date for the Countdown, so it's not like we woke up after Reading and couldn't believe we weren't in it. We knew what the deal was, and we barely missed it. Now, though, we can make life miserable for a lot of people, and I think we can easily show that we're a Countdown caliber team. We've been beating a lot of those guys lately, so let's keep doing that, and we'll set the stage early for 2008."
Setting that stage will also involve some testing, to get ready for next year's return to 90 percent nitromethane. With only four races remaining in '07, Worsham wants to combine an all-out effort for a race win with a test-mode mentality.
"We can't run 90 in a race until next year, but we're going to try to test on 90 before this year is over," Worsham said. "On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, at these last four races, we're going to be doing everything we can to knock people out and win. But we're already looking ahead to next year and we want to be ready, right out of the box, for 2008, so we'll try to test after one of these events, most likely Las Vegas.
"The move back to 90 percent is one we've been requesting for a long time. Trying to make these cars go fast on 85 was just killing parts, so I'm looking forward to making more power without having to sacrifice so many rods and pistons every run. It's really going to sound and feel great, when the car starts to cackle on 90 percent again. I'm looking forward to that, and looking forward to doing well this weekend in Dallas."
He may still be on 85 percent nitro this weekend, but Del Worsham is pegged at 100 percent on his motivation meter. If past Dallas performances are any indication, he may be about to make a great deal of noise.
STRONG-RUNNING WORSHAM HEADING TO DALLAS WITH CONFIDENCE
DALLAS (September 18, 2007) -- Although most of the public's attention has been recently focused on the eight pro teams in each Countdown To The Championship playoff hunt, discerning followers of the sport of NHRA POWERade Drag Racing may have noticed another familiar name creeping into their consciousness. Del Worsham may be in 9th place, and outside the Countdown field, but he's back in the swing of things with his red Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Impala, and it appears a race victory may yet be in his 2007 future.
Though he missed the playoffs by two rounds, Worsham has not let that disappointment affect him or his team. Their nine round wins in the last six races point to a solid race car, as well as a newly confident driver, and Worsham couldn't think of a better place to compete than the Texas Motorplex, where the NHRA tour convenes for this weekend's O'Reilly Fall Nationals.
"It's a great track, all concrete, and a great facility that has Billy Meyer's stamp all over it," Worsham said. "Everything about the Motorplex is great, and it's always a fun race to come to. We've had all kinds of success there, from making our first-ever 4-second run in 1998, to winning there twice, in 2002 and 2004. I love the Motorplex, and I can't wait to get to the track on Friday.
"If the weather people are right, we're going to have a hot and sunny one on our hands this weekend, which is going to put a lot of pressure on everybody in terms of the Friday night session. If it's going to be 95 on Saturday, you don't want to mess up on Friday night. As long as we do our job during the night session, I think we'll be in great shape, because we feel good about our hot weather tune-up and think we can run with anybody."
Worsham's deeds have backed up his words of late, with those nine recent round wins coming against a variety of big-time players. After taking out Tommy Johnson in round one at Seattle, Worsham has since earned the win light while racing against current Countdown performers Ron Capps, Robert Hight, and Gary Scelzi. In addition to those victories, he has managed other outstanding wins over Ashley Force (twice), Tony Bartone, and his teammate, Jeff Arend (also twice). This has been no streak of luck or walk-overs, but much more a two-month stretch of seriously solid racing for the red CSK team.
"It's really too bad we got messed up with all that parts breakage in the first half of the season, because it really slowed us down and kept us off our stride," Worsham said. "When you're blowing your car up so badly it gets you on CNN, you tend to focus more on survival than success, but we've got all that behind us now and we're running great.
We can't win the championship, and we can't even finish 8th in points, but we can win races and we still plan to do that.
"It would be easy to compare the current points deal with what might have been, had we not changed the format, but there's no point in that.
Like I've said before, we all knew the format and we all knew the cut-off date for the Countdown, so it's not like we woke up after Reading and couldn't believe we weren't in it. We knew what the deal was, and we barely missed it. Now, though, we can make life miserable for a lot of people, and I think we can easily show that we're a Countdown caliber team. We've been beating a lot of those guys lately, so let's keep doing that, and we'll set the stage early for 2008."
Setting that stage will also involve some testing, to get ready for next year's return to 90 percent nitromethane. With only four races remaining in '07, Worsham wants to combine an all-out effort for a race win with a test-mode mentality.
"We can't run 90 in a race until next year, but we're going to try to test on 90 before this year is over," Worsham said. "On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, at these last four races, we're going to be doing everything we can to knock people out and win. But we're already looking ahead to next year and we want to be ready, right out of the box, for 2008, so we'll try to test after one of these events, most likely Las Vegas.
"The move back to 90 percent is one we've been requesting for a long time. Trying to make these cars go fast on 85 was just killing parts, so I'm looking forward to making more power without having to sacrifice so many rods and pistons every run. It's really going to sound and feel great, when the car starts to cackle on 90 percent again. I'm looking forward to that, and looking forward to doing well this weekend in Dallas."
He may still be on 85 percent nitro this weekend, but Del Worsham is pegged at 100 percent on his motivation meter. If past Dallas performances are any indication, he may be about to make a great deal of noise.
