With the start of the 2022 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series on the horizon, it wasn’t hard to notice the excitement in Del Worsham’s voice.
Worsham, the crew chief along with Nicky Boninfante on Alexis DeJoria’s nitro Funny Car, is ready to get 2022 rolling, especially with how strong DeJoria finished the 2021 campaign.
DeJoria got a heater in the final three races last year – winning in Bristol, Tenn., losing in the second round in Las Vegas, and claiming a runner-up finish at the season-finale in Pomona, Calif. DeJoria, who also was the No. 1 qualifier in Bristol and Vegas, finished sixth in the final world standings.
“It’s pretty exciting,” Worsham said to CompetitionPlus.com. “We definitely ended on a high note. “I thought our car ran pretty well all year long, but towards the end it really started putting together some runs and being more consistent and her driving improved immensely. She was winning rounds and winning close races. I’m excited. We are going to add the new (Toyota) GR Supra body to it and hopefully that gives us something and will let us have a great season.”
Worsham said the DC Motorsports team will be making some laps at the PRO Nitro Spring Training, Feb. 10-12, at Wild Horse Motorsports Park in Phoenix.
NHRA’s season-opening Winternationals are Feb. 17-20 in Pomona.
“We definitely want to test out the new body for sure (in Phoenix) and make sure that it is up to expectations,” Worsham said. “We have already run the thing on J.R. Todd’s car, and I went out for the test they had in West Palm Beach, Fla., and everything looked great there. But we want to just make sure (in Phoenix) that we pick up where we left off and maybe make a couple of gains here and there and that body will allow us to do a little more than we were doing and knock the rust off everybody. Make sure we are in the same situation we were before. You never really know what the beginning of the season is going to bring anybody. Weather has a lot to do with it and a lot of it is situational. But we are looking to pick up where we left off.
“It appears we were kind of excelling on some of the tracks that were bumpier and a little more challenging, like Bristol and Pomona. Bristol and Pomona, which appeared to be a little more challenging to everybody, that’s where we seemed to be doing a little bit better and excelling and it was helping us. They have reground Pomona so I’m not sure if our data from there is going to be useful. We are just going to have to go there and get started like everybody else and just see where we are.”
Worsham won an NHRA Top Fuel world championship in 2011 and added a nitro Funny Car world title in 2015. Only Kenny Bernstein, Gary Scelzi and Worsham have won NHRA Top Fuel and nitro Funny Car world crowns.
Now, Worsham wants to add world championship crew chief to his ultra-impressive resume.
“It would be awesome,” Worsham said about accomplishing that goal. “My wife and I were talking about it the other day and I talked to Alexis about it. Pretty much that’s the reason we are here. We are not here to just go out and have fun and mess around. Racing for a championship was our goal and the reason we put this team together and what we all wanted. So, I think we are getting closer to it, man. We are getting closer to achieving that goal.”
Worsham knows winning a world title is a season-long process.
“Really what you have to do is just get yourself in a position to just race for it,” he said. “You just want to go in the second half of the season and have a chance. Try and get down to the very last race of the season and have an opportunity if I can win the race, I can be the champion. That’s really about all you can ask. It would be nice to be like Steve Torrence and have something wrapped up real early. Realistically, it is pretty tough class and there are a lot of great competitors and if we can get to Pomona at the end season and have a chance to win the championship I would be really, really excited.”
The state of drag racing in Top Fuel and Funny Car has kind of hit the rewind button with more single-car teams. That hasn’t gone unnoticed by Worsham who has campaigned his own independent teams at different times during his decorated career, including in 1991 when he was NHRA’s Rookie of the Year behind the wheel of his family’s nitro Funny Car.
“I like it,” Worsham said. “I think the more individual teams or more team owners we have out there, the healthier the sport will be and the better it will be. I think drag racing is doing pretty good, really. I think it is in better shape than it was the year I started when I think there were four touring professional cars. The competition is probably stronger than it was when I started driving back in 1990 and I’m just looking forward to this season.”
