	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NATIONAL HOT ROD ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 5, 2015

Del Worsham

SCOTT SMITH: Del, thank you for joining us.
DEL WORSHAM: Thank you.
SCOTT SMITH: Del is the 2011 Top Fuel world champion and is seeking his first Funny Car world championship when the season concludes in Pomona. He currently has a 38-point lead over Jack Beckman following the most recent event in Las Vegas.
Del, how is this a little bit different maybe than your 2011 championship battle in Top Fuel?
DEL WORSHAM: The first thing that's different about it, I'm coming into the finals with a lead. In 2011, I don't believe I came into the race with a lead. There were four of us racing for the championship. It was kind of a matter of seeing who was left over in the end, who was left in the final round. That's a little different coming into 2015.
We've won several races, we've had a very strong car, probably pretty much the strongest car through the Countdown as opposed to 2011, we had the strongest car before the Countdown. A little different scenario. But a lot of similarities.
SCOTT SMITH: Is it something you're looking forward to, coming into Pomona with the proverbial target on your back?
DEL WORSHAM: Oh, yeah. Really all season long, we were building this combination, the team was getting together, we were making final rounds. I made the comment multiple times a real goal of ours, especially at the beginning of the season, was just to get to the finals with an opportunity to win the championship, the opportunity that if you win the race, you could be the Mello Yello NHRA champion. We accomplished that, got there. If we win the race, we will be the champions, I believe. It's just kind of in our hands.
SCOTT SMITH: During the middle part of the summer, Jack and Matt were putting up all these big numbers, a lot of attention was paid to those two cars. Did you guys just kind of sit back and go, We got this, we're confident, we're consistent, we'll let that shake out? Was there any worry or did you pretty much have your game plan set during that timeframe?
DEL WORSHAM: Well, we kind of had a game plan. I felt pretty comfortable with it. Felt things were going pretty well up through Seattle. We got to Denver, we didn't do real well there. We went to Sonoma, watched Jack win that race. We did okay there. I thought maybe the sea level, Jack and them are coming off of Denver, they have a little momentum. So kind of we'd be okay.
We go to Seattle, he outruns us by a pretty good amount. By the time we got to the semifinals in Seattle, we were running close to where he was. I felt like things are okay here. Got to the final round and dropped the ball, lost that final round, which we definitely should have won, to Tommy Johnson.
Left Seattle, felt like we closed the gap. Whatever happened with Jack, we were right there in the field and we were going to be okay.
Then came Brainerd. We rolled in there and found out our car was not competitive with Jack or Tim Wilkinson or any of the Schumacher cars or Force cars.
After Brainerd, a first-round loss, we had a meeting. We had a test day set up for Indy on Thursday. We were going to get everything dialed in for Indy, get ready for the Countdown. Leaving Brainerd, I went to our team manager, Jim Oberhofer, I said, We better get straight over to Indy and start testing because we don't have a fast enough car here.
I jumped in the hauler, drove with the guys. I was scheduled to go home. We started Wednesday morning and put together a pretty good little combination there and felt like we definitely closed the gap to a certain degree. Again, Jack still had a little bit of a performance advantage on us.
Ran Indy. We had a couple decent runs. Went out in the semifinals, not by performance, probably more by luck, getting down the track. Took another hard look at the situation, our car, where we were, knew that some more changes had to be made.
We've been missing one thing on the car. We knew a couple things they were doing over there. They made this huge exhaust header change on their car and we hadn't done it. Didn't think too much about it. Back in the past, '95 through 2005, we kind of made those changes on and off, didn't really see a big change in it. After reviewing some video of our car and Jack's car, his car was definitely leaving the starting line different than ours.
I believe Monday night of Indy, we got together at JR Todd's house, called the header manufacturer, said, Hey, we're missing something here. Our car is fast, but Jack has 500ths on us, we need to do something. He built us some headers. I'm not sure if he built Jack's headers or not. But they were more of Jack's design.
We put them on in Charlotte and it definitely was the missing key. Instant results from that point forward.
SCOTT SMITH: We'll take questions for Del.

Q. Del, when you look at your chance to win this championship, if you can achieve your goal, what will it mean to you when you look back at your entire career and see this championship?
DEL WORSHAM: It will definitely be pretty amazing. When I came into Funny Car racing, I was 20 years old, my goal was just to get a license and possibly qualify for an NHRA event.
I didn't really start off, let's say like Antron Brown or Jack Beckman, in a professional race, in a car that could win races or a championship. I started off with my dad, one partner, little trailer, one car, one spare engine. We went race to race back in the early '90s trying to get the NHRA money, collect it, go to the next race, just learn how to qualify and win rounds.
My goals changed as the years went on. Finally 1997 came along. We got a decent sponsorship from (indiscernible). We had a little bit of money to play with. At that point the goal became not just qualifying for events but to make top 10 and make a run at the championship.
It would be pretty special. From 1997 to today, when we finally have the funding to go out and race against John Force Racing for the championship, that has been going on pretty much the last 20 years of my life.

Q. Del, it probably seems like an eternity from Vegas to Pomona. What are you doing to control your anticipation and butterflies of getting back in the car?
DEL WORSHAM: You're not going to believe what I'm doing right now. I'm still in Las Vegas right now.
Anyway, in the middle of all this racing and everything else I do, I kind of started this kind of like drive this car, upgrading licensing processing for upcoming racers, or if you're on alcohol racer, sportsman racer, you want to become a professional racer, I've been putting people in my personal Funny Car that my dad and I own, Top Fuel dragster, use it for the same thing.
On Monday we had a client who ran well, a 416, towards his goal of becoming a professional racer at some time. I have another gentleman out here, Ray Martin, who is a sportsman racer, races pro modified. After I do this, we're going straight to the starting line to make his first run for the day in the Funny Car. I have my Top Fuel dragster out here. Going to make a couple runs on it to get it prepared.
I'm still in Las Vegas. I'm still drag racing. I'm still involved. My hands are dirty. I've been working on the car. It's nice because I don't have to sit around and worry about or think about what's coming.

Q. Should you be the third person to ever win a championship in both Top Fuel and Funny Car, what would that mean to you?
DEL WORSHAM: It would definitely be really cool. Like I said, I didn't start off drag racing or being a driver to win championships. I started off just to get to drive a cool car, a Funny Car, something I'd watched my whole life.
So to win the championship in 2011 with Allen Johnson, Sheik Al-Anabi, was definitely very special, something that I could never describe or even tell you how special it was.
But this chance now in a Funny Car, what I started in, being a part of this team, kind of being part of building this whole Funny Car with Nicky, Johno, Connie Kalitta, building this thing for Scott, it would mean a lot to win the championship. Icing on the cake and bonus is to get to win in both classes.

Q. You brought up Connie Kalitta's name. What would it mean to bring another championship to that team and to be able to bring that home and present it, to be able to share that with Connie, who is obviously one of the legends out here?
DEL WORSHAM: It would mean more than I can describe. Connie, they paid the ultimate sacrifice there with his son Scott. For him to keep his car out here racing in his honor, his name, trying to finish what they started with Funny Car. They were very successful Top Fuel racers. So the Funny Car, it had some good days, bad days, kind of up and down, all over the place. He stuck with it, stuck with his people, stuck with his crew chiefs, Nicky and Johno, that entire team. Very little turnover since I got here in 2013 to drive this car. A very dedicated group of individuals starting from my DHL team to the entire Kalitta Motorsports.
It would be, I would say, end up being the highlight of my career if we could bring this off and bring this to Connie Kalitta personally for what they've gone through, the grieving they've gone through, what they've put into drag racing, what they sacrificed for it.
SCOTT SMITH: We'll let you get up to the starting line, back to your day job there. Again, thank you very much for joining us. We will see you when the season concludes in Pomona.
DEL WORSHAM: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297