Funny Car racer Jack Wyatt loves to think of his makeshift crew at the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals as a band of brothers, but reality suggests it might be more of a gathering of misfit toys. 

Wyatt raced the weekend with a conglomeration of 1990s crewmen, many of whom used to work for Del Worsham over the years. 

“I was on my way to Bristol with really no help, and I called these guys up, dusted them off, and brought them back out here and put them to work,” Wyatt said.

They might not win the race, but there’s no shortage of memories when it comes to telling stories of the old days. 

“They started telling them [on the first day], and Del and everybody laughed,” Wyatt said. “Then they got out of there in a hurry, saying, “Okay, we’re not doing that here.” 

So the roster, according to Wyatt, includes Jeff Edwards, Tom Leskovan, his son Tyler Wyatt, and Rob Hyson. 

“We [Edwards] go back as far as working on Doc Holiday’s Telstar car here for the IHRA World Championship,” Wyatt explained. “Tom Leskovan there; we worked on Tasca’s deal crew chiefing on that a few years ago. And then back there in the back, that’s Rob Hyson. That goes way back to when he worked for Al Hoffman and helped everybody through the years after that, too. What a group.”

The best part of the process for an independent team is Wyatt doesn’t have to train the help. 

“I just get out of their way,” Wyatt said. “The only thing, they wear me out asking where all the tools are at and stuff. That’s the only thing.”

Tyler is the youngest one out of the group at 40. On the other end, Wyatt is not entirely ready to consider himself the weak link.

“I’m getting old,” Wyatt said with a smile. “Me and Tyler showed up and put the awning up in the heat. Well, I felt bad after that.

“In the whole group. They ask me questions. I go, ‘I don’t know. You guys did it before. Do it, fix it, whatever it takes.” 

“I show them where the tools are at, and the parts are at, and that’s what they do.”