Worsham Regains Rookie Form With Victory

Del Worsham’s lucky streak finally came to an end near a truck stop Wednesday in Redding. The tractor-trailer carrying his Pontiac Firebird Funny Car blew a tire en route to Sonoma for this weekend’s Autolite Nationals, leaving the 29-year-old Laguna Hills resident and his crew stranded for a few hours.

But Worsham didn’t seem to mind the misfortune, not after the run of good luck he had the weekend before at the Northwest Nationals in Seattle, where he won his first NHRA national event since 1991.

“I’m still stunned,” said Worsham, who had the fifth-best qualifying time. “It hasn’t been a spectacular year. To come out and and get a win is really special.”

The timing couldn’t have been any better for Worsham, who stunned the world with two victories during his rookie of the year campaign eight years ago, but came up short in five ensuing trips to the final round.

“Actually we are in the middle of sponsor negotiations with Kragen Auto Parts for renewing our contract,” Worsham said. “It was absolutely great timing.”

Worsham didn’t have an easy path to the final round. He completed the quarter-mile strip in 5.127 seconds to defeat Dale Creasy in Round 1, then sent Al Hofmann packing with a 5.144. Worsham then had to face points-leader John Force of Yorba Linda in the semifinals. Worsham hadn’t beaten him since 1992.

Force, who had reached the finals in eight of the previous 12 events, smoked his tires and Worsham went on to win in a modest 5.185.

“Other than winning the race, [Force] was the biggest hurdle we had.” Worsham said. “When we got by him, we were absolutely stunned. It would have been nice to go home with that victory, but once we got past him the next thing to do was go on and win the race.”

Worsham was matched up against Whit Bazemore in the final round. Bazemore, who is third in the point standings, was Worsham’s final-round opponent in Chicago last year, the last time Worsham advanced to a final round.

This time Bazemore smoked the tires and Worsham went on to the victory in 5.283.

Worsham, who became the youngest Funny Car driver to win an NHRA national event when he won the 1991 Southern Nationals at age 21, said he hopes he’s still just scratching the surface of success.

“I was the youngest guy when I started driving nine years ago and I’m still the youngest guy now,” he said.

INDY RACING LEAGUE

Stephan Gregoire, who drives for Dick Simon’s Dana Point-based racing team, nearly took home an early wedding present at Sunday’s Mid-Atlantic 200 in Dover, Del.

Gregoire, who plans to be married in France next weekend, took the lead for the first time this season on Lap 151 of the 200-lap race. Gregoire continued to expand his lead over Mark Dismore, Greg Ray and Sam Schmidt until coming up on IRL rookie Scott Harrington, who was a lap down.

Harrington was shown the blue flag (yield to faster cars) for more than 15 laps but apparently didn’t take notice. Ray made a bold move to take the lead on Lap 173, then on Lap 189, Gregoire and Dismore, who were running second and third, respectively, collided, sending both cars sliding into the inside retaining. Ray went on to win the race. Gregoire finished 14th.