John Hale hoped his moments of defiance at the Texas Motorplex would one day lead to a day when he could stand on the starting line at an NHRA national event without the proper accreditation.

"Long before I made any laps in anything fast I stood out here underneath the tower on a Friday night during qualifying and tried not to get busted for being there without a pass," Hale recalled from nearly 30 years ago.

"From there I watched guys like Al Hoffmann, Chuck Etchells, John Force, Kenny Bernstein, all of those guys back then, and just dreamed about someday being one of them, strapped in, rolling under that tower on a Friday night. And now I'm so happy to say that dream's come true more than once. So all the history in my drag racing career goes back to that one Friday night underneath that tower here."

This weekend Hale is driving Del Worsham's Funny Car after the reached a deal last weekend.

"Del called me last Saturday and it was just a great opportunity. So I said let me talk to my wife and think about it and we put something together pretty quick," Hale explains. "You know, I love driving these cars, I like staying as current as I can with my license to drive them, and I just don't know how many more opportunities I'll get like this, so I just couldn't pass it up."

Hale is racing this weekend with his Best of Texas Barbeque Sauce adorning the sides of Worsham's Toyota-bodied flopper. Worsham has hale behind the wheel of a car

"It requires trust. Especially with this particular car because it's the same car I won the championship in 2015 with Kalitta, so I have a lot of history with it. It's a very special car to me and it's also a very fast car," Worsham said.

"We do a lot of licensing and a lot of upgrading and I even pondered whether or not I was even going to let anyone else drive this car, but John is an experienced driver, I have confidence in his abilities and he's from this area and I'd like to see him do well here. I really didn't have a whole lot of sponsorship for this weekend, but I really felt like the car needs to be run, so everything just makes sense for John to drive it here."

This weekend is Hale's first NHRA event since April 2017 when he drove for the late Steve Plueger in Las Vegas.

"You have seat-of-the-pants feeling in an aircraft that helps you know where it's going and what to do to correct it and it's the same thing when driving a Funny Car. I myself like to be strapped in as tight as I can get in the car; I feel like I can drive it better when I feel like I'm almost part of the machine. The airplane is the same way. And you never quit practicing because there's always going to be something new thrown at you," he said.

"These cars will throw something new at you, too. They can run good for four or five runs in a row and then suddenly make a hard move on you right at the finish line. That's when you get out and look at it wondering what the hell all that was about. They can be very unpredictable, but I have a lot of laps in these cars so it should come back to me pretty quickly."