Power.

It is something all drivers seek and something all crew chiefs spend their lives trying to obtain.

And on Friday, it was the very thing Del Worsham hoped his team had enough of to take him to the top in Funny Car at the 29th annual Protect The Harvest NHRA Northwest Nationals presented by Lucas Oil at Pacific Raceways.

After driving his way to the quickest pass of the first session to kick off Friday’s finale to the Western Swing, Worsham watched as Chad Head laid down an impressive lap on a very warm track early in session two to overtake the defending Funny Car world champion. That left Worsham hoping his team had enough in the tank to get back on top.

“When Chad went 3.89 I looked at my crew chief right away and the big question was superchargers and power and do we have enough to run 3.88 or 3.89 to beat Chad,” Worsham said. “Thankfully, the crew chiefs nailed it and we hit it just right.”

In the final Funny Car pairing of the session, Worsham responded in impressive fashion with a new track-record run of 3.886 at 327.98 mph in the DHL Toyota Funny Car to retake the top spot by .008 over Head. Head, whose previous best in qualifying this season was sixth back in Englishtown, was bumped to second with a 3.894 at 327.11 mph.

“I have been coming here since the old 64 Funny Car days and the Fox Hunt days, so I have been coming here most of my life and this track has always been great, always been really fast,” Worsham said. “We have always made some of our best runs here at Seattle. And today, it didn’t let anyone down. For the temperature and the surface, it was all you could expect and better. We are making runs on 120 degree tracks that 12 months ago nobody would have believed you could.”

If Worsham’s time holds on Saturday, it will be his third No. 1 qualifier award of the season and second in a row - something that has never happened for Worsham in a Funny Car.

Friday also left Worsham hopeful for Sunday that he can get over the hump of two-straight semifinal defeats and reach his first final since Las Vegas back in April.

“It definitely feels good. We had a couple of opportunities earlier this season and just mechanical things got away from us,” Worsham said. “But what is really cool about it here right now is that we are running in conditions similar to race day. We are not going to show up on Sunday and see conditions that we haven’t already seen, so I am really excited about that.”

Just behind Worsham and Head in third on the qualifying charts is Tim Wilkerson who raced to a 3.901 at 324.05 mph. Ron Capps (3.902) and Courtney Force (3.902) rounded out the top five qualifiers from Friday’s sessions. John Force, who has won the last two races, is currently qualified 10th.

Riding a wave of momentum with quick runs and round wins piling up, Worsham is hoping the DHL Toyota team can begin its ascent to the top just in time for the Countdown to the Championship - just like they did last year en route to the Mello Yello championship.

“We saw last year what it took to win the Mello Yello Funny Car championship. Not that that’s a model, but when you have to get hot, we know we can get it done because we have before,” Worsham said. “We saw (Ron) Capps get hot earlier this year, then we saw Courtney, then Matt Hagan, now John Force, so I am hoping everybody is peaking their way out of this and we can slither right in there and try to pull this off again.”