<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/d_worsham.jpg" alt="d_worsham" align="right"borders="0"/>
Commerce, Ga (April 22, 2008) -- If the NHRA POWERade schedule were to be plotted out visually, using color-coding to signify the relative "temperature" of the season, as it applies to pace, stress, and atmosphere, it would likely start out a pale blue. While the rest of the country is still dealing with winter, the tour begins at a leisurely pace, skipping across the southern edge of the United States as if it's in no hurry to actually get anywhere. Needing six long weeks to complete its first three races, the schedule finally quickens a bit after Gainesville, perhaps raising the color reference to yellow as the next three races come along at a more standard "one race every two weeks" rate.
This weekend's event, however, marks the moment when the color bar shifts to bright orange, and it's soon to be followed by red, as the schedule kicks into a higher gear it won't shift out of until after Labor Day. Starting with the Summit Racing Equipment Southern Nationals, scheduled for this weekend at Atlanta Dragway, the summer heat will be matched by the frantic pace of the campaign, as the final 13 races in the "regular season" will be completed over the course of the next 19 weeks, in locations ranging from New Jersey to Washington, from Georgia to Minnesota, and from the bootleg hills of Tennessee to the wine country of Sonoma, Calif. To those marking their days by more standard measures, 19 weeks may seem like a long time, and it does indeed represent the remainder of a spring that has just begun, followed by an entire summer. For Del Worsham and his NHRA colleagues, however, it will likely go by in a flash.
"This is really it, this is where it all starts to fly by," said the popular driver of the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Impala Funny Car. "I don't know about everyone else, but I get really frustrated during the early part of the season. I'm a racer, that's what I do, and I don't really like it much when there's so much down-time between races. Now, we're about to leap off the cliff into this giant race to the Countdown, and these next 13 races are going to be kind of blur. The teams that slow it all down, and take the time to concentrate on every lap and every little detail, are the ones that are going to be going for the championship after we set the 10-car Countdown field.
"On our team, I think we learned a bit of a lesson last year. In the past, it's always been kind of easy to look past a bad performance at this time of the year. You knew you had 19 or 20 races left until Pomona, and there was plenty of time to fix things that went wrong early in the year. Now, these next 13 races are what it's all about, and you have to treat each one with some desperation and focus. You can't just assume you'll make it all better next week, because before you know it you'll be out of 'next weeks' and we'll be at Indy. We have to maximize what we do at every race, and treat every race as the most important event of the year, one by one, until we get there. It's going to be really intense, because there's way more than 10 teams that rightfully feel they should be a part of the Countdown."
Worsham knows, all too well, of the pitfalls of a slow start. Just like in 2007, he began this season with consecutive DNQs, and those are points he'll never have in his column. This year, however, he rebounded faster than he did in '07, by picking up a round win in Gainesville and then a trophy in Houston. He currently sits 9th in points, though the logjam behind him is a long way from showing any signs of clearing out.
"We may be in 9th right now, but you can look at the points sheet and see drivers all the way down to 20th place who can honestly say 'If we just pick up a couple of rounds at a couple of races in a row, we'll be right in this thing.' That's how tight it is, and there's no reason to think it's going to spread out anytime soon. The competition is so even, we have five different winners in five races and Ashley Force is in the points lead without having won a race yet. You have some huge teams that are still trying to get untracked, and are still outside the top ten, so it's going to be nuts for a while.
"All that just ties back in to what I said before. You have to really concentrate every day, on every lap. You can't allow yourself to look at the schedule and think about how we're going to be at these seven tracks in the next ten weeks, and if we just win x number of rounds during that stretch we'll be okay. If you do that, you end up at the seventh race, ten weeks from now, wondering where all the round wins went. All you can think about is the next one, as if Atlanta is the last race of the regular season. That's my goal, to treat each race like it's the last race of the regular season."
At one early juncture in Worsham's career, Atlanta might well have been the last race. Ever. He and his father were at the end of their financial rope during Worsham's rookie season, back in 1991, when they decided to race in Atlanta and then pack it in for a while, in the hope they could raise enough money to get back on tour before the season ended. As that race day went on, and Worsham kept winning rounds, all he was thinking was that the long drive back to California would, at least, be more pleasant, with a few more dollars in their pockets. In the end, he went on to win the race (his first of 22 career wins) and the purse money allowed the Worsham men to stay on the road. They've been there, more or less, ever since.
"It was huge win back then, way bigger than I even knew at the time," the younger Worsham said. "It was kind of over my head and too big to comprehend, but it kept us racing and that was what was important to me. It was a last-second save for us, and it changed my life. I haven't won in Atlanta since then, and I'm not even looking ahead to Sunday afternoon to envision that. I'm looking at Friday afternoon, when we make our first qualifying lap. I want that to be a good one, and then I want to get in the show solidly. We'll worry about Sunday when it comes, and I'm not worrying about the next race until we leave Atlanta. One day at a time."
From blue, to yellow, to orange, and to red, the 2008 NHRA season is heating up. Del Worsham simply aims to create a little heat himself, near the city nicknamed "Hot-Lanta".
WORSHAM'S 2008 ABOUT TO HEAT UP IN "HOT-LANTA"
Commerce, Ga (April 22, 2008) -- If the NHRA POWERade schedule were to be plotted out visually, using color-coding to signify the relative "temperature" of the season, as it applies to pace, stress, and atmosphere, it would likely start out a pale blue. While the rest of the country is still dealing with winter, the tour begins at a leisurely pace, skipping across the southern edge of the United States as if it's in no hurry to actually get anywhere. Needing six long weeks to complete its first three races, the schedule finally quickens a bit after Gainesville, perhaps raising the color reference to yellow as the next three races come along at a more standard "one race every two weeks" rate.
This weekend's event, however, marks the moment when the color bar shifts to bright orange, and it's soon to be followed by red, as the schedule kicks into a higher gear it won't shift out of until after Labor Day. Starting with the Summit Racing Equipment Southern Nationals, scheduled for this weekend at Atlanta Dragway, the summer heat will be matched by the frantic pace of the campaign, as the final 13 races in the "regular season" will be completed over the course of the next 19 weeks, in locations ranging from New Jersey to Washington, from Georgia to Minnesota, and from the bootleg hills of Tennessee to the wine country of Sonoma, Calif. To those marking their days by more standard measures, 19 weeks may seem like a long time, and it does indeed represent the remainder of a spring that has just begun, followed by an entire summer. For Del Worsham and his NHRA colleagues, however, it will likely go by in a flash.
"This is really it, this is where it all starts to fly by," said the popular driver of the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Impala Funny Car. "I don't know about everyone else, but I get really frustrated during the early part of the season. I'm a racer, that's what I do, and I don't really like it much when there's so much down-time between races. Now, we're about to leap off the cliff into this giant race to the Countdown, and these next 13 races are going to be kind of blur. The teams that slow it all down, and take the time to concentrate on every lap and every little detail, are the ones that are going to be going for the championship after we set the 10-car Countdown field.
"On our team, I think we learned a bit of a lesson last year. In the past, it's always been kind of easy to look past a bad performance at this time of the year. You knew you had 19 or 20 races left until Pomona, and there was plenty of time to fix things that went wrong early in the year. Now, these next 13 races are what it's all about, and you have to treat each one with some desperation and focus. You can't just assume you'll make it all better next week, because before you know it you'll be out of 'next weeks' and we'll be at Indy. We have to maximize what we do at every race, and treat every race as the most important event of the year, one by one, until we get there. It's going to be really intense, because there's way more than 10 teams that rightfully feel they should be a part of the Countdown."
Worsham knows, all too well, of the pitfalls of a slow start. Just like in 2007, he began this season with consecutive DNQs, and those are points he'll never have in his column. This year, however, he rebounded faster than he did in '07, by picking up a round win in Gainesville and then a trophy in Houston. He currently sits 9th in points, though the logjam behind him is a long way from showing any signs of clearing out.
"We may be in 9th right now, but you can look at the points sheet and see drivers all the way down to 20th place who can honestly say 'If we just pick up a couple of rounds at a couple of races in a row, we'll be right in this thing.' That's how tight it is, and there's no reason to think it's going to spread out anytime soon. The competition is so even, we have five different winners in five races and Ashley Force is in the points lead without having won a race yet. You have some huge teams that are still trying to get untracked, and are still outside the top ten, so it's going to be nuts for a while.
"All that just ties back in to what I said before. You have to really concentrate every day, on every lap. You can't allow yourself to look at the schedule and think about how we're going to be at these seven tracks in the next ten weeks, and if we just win x number of rounds during that stretch we'll be okay. If you do that, you end up at the seventh race, ten weeks from now, wondering where all the round wins went. All you can think about is the next one, as if Atlanta is the last race of the regular season. That's my goal, to treat each race like it's the last race of the regular season."
At one early juncture in Worsham's career, Atlanta might well have been the last race. Ever. He and his father were at the end of their financial rope during Worsham's rookie season, back in 1991, when they decided to race in Atlanta and then pack it in for a while, in the hope they could raise enough money to get back on tour before the season ended. As that race day went on, and Worsham kept winning rounds, all he was thinking was that the long drive back to California would, at least, be more pleasant, with a few more dollars in their pockets. In the end, he went on to win the race (his first of 22 career wins) and the purse money allowed the Worsham men to stay on the road. They've been there, more or less, ever since.
"It was huge win back then, way bigger than I even knew at the time," the younger Worsham said. "It was kind of over my head and too big to comprehend, but it kept us racing and that was what was important to me. It was a last-second save for us, and it changed my life. I haven't won in Atlanta since then, and I'm not even looking ahead to Sunday afternoon to envision that. I'm looking at Friday afternoon, when we make our first qualifying lap. I want that to be a good one, and then I want to get in the show solidly. We'll worry about Sunday when it comes, and I'm not worrying about the next race until we leave Atlanta. One day at a time."
From blue, to yellow, to orange, and to red, the 2008 NHRA season is heating up. Del Worsham simply aims to create a little heat himself, near the city nicknamed "Hot-Lanta".
