Worsham Is Seeking a Fast Start at Pomona

With only 34 days remaining before the first drag racer blasts off the starting line at Pomona in the National Hot Rod Assn.’s season-opening Winternationals, funny car owner-driver Del Worsham and his Team CSK crew are busy putting the finishing touches on two new chassis.

Worsham, the boy wonder of drag racing when he won his first national funny car race in 1991 at 21, will be 34 on Feb. 11 but is the youngest driver among the funny car elite. He is also, with the help of his master fabricator father, Chuck, the only funny car driver building his racing chassis.

Their workshop is in a small building in an industrial park in a corner of Anaheim. He has 17 employees working on cars that he and Phil Burkhart will drive this year.

“This place is a whole lot smaller than John Force’s operation,” a reporter noted.

“Yeah, and so is the overhead,” said Worsham, smiling at the thought. He always seems to be smiling. In a school play, he would be Huck Finn.

Worsham won the final race of 2003 in one of the more bizarre final rounds in NHRA history.

At Pomona, in the Auto Club finals, he was lined up against Cory Lee, his Checker Schuck’s Kragen teammate, in a battle of Pontiac Firebirds built by the Worshams.

Del, overanxious, jumped the start and when the red light came on, was automatically the loser. But Lee, focused on his driving and seeing Worsham in front -- and not having seen the red light -- slammed on the throttle. The car balked and fought back and as Lee was in and out of the throttle -- drivers call it “pedaling” -- he crossed the center line, also a cause for disqualification.

In drag racing, it doesn’t matter which foul comes first, the deciding factor is which is more serious, and crossing the center line outweighs a jumped start. Starter Rick Stewart declared Worsham the winner.

“It was really weird,” Worsham recalled. “I got on the radio and started apologizing to the guys. They yelled back, ‘Shut up for a second, dude. You won!’ ”

That wasn’t the strangest race Worsham ever had, though.

In 1991, lined up against Richard Hartman at Reading, Pa., Worsham’s engine broke on the pre-race burnout and he was eliminated. Then, Hartman’s car wouldn’t start and he was eliminated too.

“Somebody, I don’t remember who, got a free ride in the next round,” Worsham said. “I think that was more bizarre than what happened with Cory.”

When Worsham won his first event, beating Mark Oswald in the final round of the Southern Nationals in Atlanta, his crew was made up of himself, his dad and a friend.

“My dad had his job back home and on race weekends, I would pick him up at the airport Friday night and we would work on the car through Sunday and I would take him back to the airport that night,” Worsham said.

And before the shop in Anaheim?

“All our work was done in my folks’ backyard garage. It was a three-car garage in Orange Park Acres.

“We never had any problems with the neighbors until we started showing up in 2001 with haulers that had Team CSK on the sides. As far back as I can remember, there have been funny cars in our garage. I grew up around them.”

Chuck Worsham became involved with funny cars in 1975, when Del was 5 years old. He volunteered to help with a friend’s alcohol funny car and three years later became an owner. In 1987, with Art Hendy as his driver, he moved to nitro fuel and has been in that class ever since.

“I can’t imagine a better life than working at what you’d do for a hobby, having my dad as crew chief and being able to work alongside him every day,” Del said. “That’s as good a deal as anyone could have.”

His grandmother, Elaine, is his biggest fan. For his first seven seasons, she traveled to every race he entered. Now 82, she ended her streak two years ago at Gainesville, Fla., but still gets to five or six a season. In 1988, Del, Chuck and Elaine received the Blaine Johnson Award for their “perseverance and dedication to NHRA drag racing.” .

Worsham acknowledges that after winning that first race at 21, he expected more to happen than did.

“It wasn’t that it came easy, but when [the win] came, we thought it would open up some sponsorship, but we were wrong. I never thought that things would be as hard as they were the next five years. You can’t make it in the NHRA on purse money winnings.”

In the last three seasons, Worsham has finished third twice and fourth last year in Powerade season points. With the funny car picture muddled this year, he is looking to move closer to the top.

“[Champion] Tony [Pedregon] has left Force and joined his brother [Cruz] and they should need some time to get adjusted, although they have top crew chiefs in Dickie Venable and Wes Cerny,” Worsham said. “And Force is taking on a new driver [Eric Medlen] who has never raced. Whit Bazemore is in the same boat as us, with a two-car team hoping to move up. It should be very interesting.”

Medlen, 30, is the son of John Medlen, who was Pedregon’s crew chief in his eight years with John Force Racing. Gary Densham also will return as Force’s third driver.

It all starts at Pomona with the Winternationals, Feb. 19-22.

Worsham has won the fall race there two of the last three years but has not fared so well in the season-opening Winternationals.

“That first race at Pomona is a hard one,” he said. “All the sponsors are there, looking for a good start to the season, and all our friends and family are there, hoping to celebrate. You just want to do well.”

Pomona, in 1993, gave Worsham one of his most embarrassing moments. He faced the legend, John Force, in the final round and lost on a hole-shot to the veteran from Yorba Linda.

“It was hard to explain to people that I ran a 5.19 to his 5.22 and still lost,” he said.

He got a measure of revenge last year when he beat Force in the finals at St. Louis for one of his three 2003 victories.

“Winning St. Louis was special because I qualified last [16th] and had to meet No. 1, Densham, in the first round,” he said. “I won that one and eventually beat Force in the finals. It’s always big when you can beat Force.”

Worsham also had the distinction of winning the year’s closest round, defeating Tim Wilkerson by .0034 of a second in the Auto Club semifinals.

Del and his dad also use their know-how in fabrication and engineering on fun projects in their spare time. Such as a nitro-powered MegaReta.

“We mix 15 gallons of margaritas using a 6,000 horsepower engine with nitro-methane,” Worsham explained with a grin. “It makes a heck of a noise and a heck of a great drink. The nitro costs about $120 and the whole 15 gallons costs about $200. That’s $13 a gallon, not bad for a good margarita.

“We make ‘em right on the trailer when we want to celebrate.”

If Team CSK wins the Winternationals, there should quite a gathering around the transporter.

Busy Mr. Yeley

Statistics from the Chili Bowl Midget National last week show that cars owned by Andy Bondido finished first with Cory Kruseman driving and third with J.J. Yeley, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.

While Kruseman was winning his second Chili Bowl from the pole, Yeley was busy setting records for endurance. Because he failed to qualify well, he had to start his first race fourth in the F main.

He won that one, went from 13th to first to win the E main, from 13th to second to advance from the C main, and from 18th to second in the B main to qualify 16th for the A main.

In all, the U.S. Auto Club triple crown champion drove 120 laps over three nights and passed 69 cars in the process. The A main was 50 laps. World of Outlaws veteran Danny Lasoski was second, Tony Stewart fourth and Jason Leffler fifth.

Kruseman’s victory was his second. Car owner Bondido also won with Kruseman in 2000 and Lealand McSpadden in 1991.