Roger Richards Photos
A flood of emotion replaces two year drought for Worsham
Del Worsham won his first Funny Car title since 2005 last weekend in Houston.
Del Worsham has never taken race victories for granted. Not when he
broke through as a 21-year-old rookie to win Atlanta in 1991, not when
he was in the process of winning 18 races between 2001 and 2005, and
certainly not when he accomplished his famous "double-up" at Indy, by
winning the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals and the U.S. Smokeless Showdown
during the same weekend. As he often says, "You treat every win like
it's your last, because it just might be." That's a healthy attitude
to carry with you, but even Worsham may have been wondering if the '05
Indy win really was his last, when two and a half years went by without
another trip to the Winner's Circle.
That all ended, of course, this past weekend in Houston, when Worsham,
his father Chuck, and the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Funny Car team
found their mojo, found the consistency they've almost always been
known for, and found their way back to the winner's circle, with a
dominant start-to-finish performance on race day. On a track that
befuddled many of the greatest minds in the sport, the CSK team put on
a clinic, running 4.92, 4.91, 4.91, and 4.93 to sweep through
eliminations, while simultaneously lifting a million pounds of weight
off their driver's shoulders.
