Before Audrey Worm came along, the fastest creature in Grantville, Pa., was one of the Thoroughbreds at Penn National Race Course. Worm was born 20 years after the horse-racing track opened, but the 25-year-old (who, incidentally, used to work in security at the Penn National casino) has the stronger horsepower now, 10,000 strong.

She was set to make her professional debut, and her only appearance this year, in the Leverich Family-owned dragster that Smax Smith has been racing at selected events. Smith loaned her the Top Fuel car with at least one lucky round on it – he defeated Tony Schumacher at Epping, N.H., in June. And Worm, fresh from her licensing process, had intended to make the most of the opportunity.

After she passed up the first qualifying session and performed the burnout in her evening chance, something definitely was amiss with the front suspension on the car. The telltale sign was the misalignment of the front wheels. So her team pushed her off the stating line, and she’ll have two more opportunities to make the less-than-full field. Late word was that she broke a steering arm on the run.

With a lot of encouragement and driving advice from Top Fuel Countdown racer Scott Palmer and 2010 Funny Car champion and 2017 title contender Jack Beckman, Worm officially joined the Top Fuel ranks 20 days ago, during the Labor Day weekend – nearly one year after she began it. Rain interfered at least four times, but she stuck with her dream and made her final licensing run at Toronto Motorsports Park the first Saturday in September.

“So we drove down to Indianapolis to get Scott Palmer to sign off on it on Sunday,” Worm said, the pride and spunk in her voice laced with giggles. “Then I turned it in to Graham Light (NHRA senior vice-president of racing operations) Monday afternoon. And he hand-delivered it to Glendora [the sanctioning body’s California headquarters].” Canadian Funny Car veteran Paul Noakes was the other signee for her license.

She had wanted to debut at Maple Grove Raceway, for it’s her home track that’s just 45 minutes away from her house. “It was just perfect timing,” Worm said. “Charlotte [site of last week’s race] was a little far, and we weren’t quite ready to go with parts and everything. It just worked out perfectly. I have a whole bunch of friends and co-workers and my grandma and all my family members here. So it’s a lot of fun.”

Helping her over the weekend was her father, her fiancé Grant, Bob and Gary Leverich, cylinder-head specialist Dan Fairies, and bottom end servicer Jake Royston. She skipped the first session Friday, as did Terry Haddock.

Beckman urged her to have fun, and she promised before her first qualifying run Friday that she would – when the time is appropriate.

It has been a labor of love she has been enjoying with her father, John Worm, who owns Slingshot Dragsters LLC.  Together they pack her parachutes, and she says he does “everything!” to help her prepare for each run. (He pays attention to safety matters, applies decals, and provides moral support. She said, “He gives me my pep talk. He keeps me sane.” Reminded that her dad might not have to worry about that last task, for no one who does this is sane, Worm laughed with glee.)

Worm logged her experience driving one of the 160 front-engine dragsters her father has built throughout the years.

“I drove our shop car, that was our exhibition dragster, for eight or nine years,” she said, sheepishly owning up to racing, at age 15, a Jr. Dragster “for literally two days” before deciding she wanted a bigger and faster car.

This entry into Top Fuel competition marks Worm’s return to racing. She had served as NHRA Funny Car pioneer and champion Bruce Larson’s back-up girl. “My dad had built a tribute Funny Car for Bruce,” Worm said. “So we ran it with him for two seasons. At Englishtown, for the Night Of Fire, I was backing him up and I fell and broke my leg. So that kind of put an end to my racing for a couple of years.”

She never gave up her desire to square off against the cream of the sport’s crop.

“Dad and I just decided we could afford it now and we were just going to Top Fuel. It worked out that Gary and Bob [Leverich] had a car, and we worked out a deal that I could drive for them. Worm’s fiancé, Aaron Grant, works at an Ontario shop that Smax Smith frequents, so that’s how she met Smith. Worm’s grandfather used to tune the dragster for Canadian racer Barry Paton (Todd Paton’s father), so he knew the Leveriches from their association at the racetrack.

Worm's goal was just to qualify – which was guaranteed, with only 15 entrants, fewer than a full field. 

“'And at least go one round.” She fantasized, “We talked about that: ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we qualify No. 1 and get a first-round bye?’” 

What was particularly nice was that avid autocross racer Carrie Willhoff and her California-based Racechick Apparel brand gave Worm a boost this past Monday evening, partnering with her for at least Reading. Worm sported a hat that flashed one of Racechick’s clever sayings: “Helmet Hair – Don’t Care.”    

Worm said she and the Leveriches and Smith haven’t had any discussions about how the two racers might share the dragster in 2018. (“We didn’t get tat far yet,” Worm said. “We’re just going to see what happens at Maple Grove and see what happens over the wintertime.”)

But she said she would like to enter six-eight races next season: Epping, Englishtown, maybe Norwalk, Bristol, Charlotte, St. Louis, and perhaps, with proper funding, Indianapolis.

Whenever and wherever Worm is racing, she plans to be raising awareness of Parkinson’s disease and raising money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation, whose mission is “accelerating breakthroughs patients can feel in their everyday lives” while dedicating itself to “finding a cure for Parkinson's disease through an aggressively funded research agenda.”

Worm said, “I’m lucky to be in the position I’m in. The Top Fuel ranks is such an exclusive group. People try and sometimes they don’t make it in or they don’t have money to do it. I want people to know I’m grateful to be out here, being where I am. A lot of people have helped me get to where I am, and I just wanted to be able to give back to other people.”

Worm and her father chose the cause because they are living it.

“My grandfather had Parkinson’s. He passed away in 2010. And my dad got diagnosed when he was 40. He’s 52 now,” she said. “So Parkinson’s played a big part in my childhood, as well as my young-adult life. It has had a big impact on my family.

The plan for next season is to wrap the dragster with Michael J. Fox Foundation livery. She’s still trying to finalize her vision of doing something like Antron Brown did to honor breast-cancer survivors and victims with his Don Schumacher Racing-owned Matco Tools/Toyota/U.S. Army Dragster. She’s leaning toward fans making a donation to the Michael J. Fox Foundation and then being rewarded with the opportunity to write the name of a loved one on the car. But all that still is in the planning stages, Worm said.

“The goal,” Worm said, “is to be able to write them [the Michael J. Fox Foundation] a $1 million check next season when we’re done racing.”