FUNNY CAR
Del Worsham (Joe McHugh photo)
In Funny Car, Del Worsham ended a two-year victory drought by driving his Checker Schuck's Kragen Chevy Impala SS past the Ford of Ashley Force for his 22nd career win but first since the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis in 2005. Worsham defeated Jerry Toliver in Round 1, fellow Chevy driver Tim Wilkerson in Round 2 and 14-time Funny Car champ John Force in the semifinals before facing off against Force's daughter, Ashley, who was looking for the first career Funny Car win of her young career. In the final round Worsham had a winning elapsed time of 4.933 seconds at 316.60 mph to Force's 4.971 e.t. at 302.62 mph.
"What a great day," Worsham said. "I don't think one person working on the car was on our car in '05. We've just got a bunch of young kids that are really excited and really hungry. Everything just came together. I'm not going to say it was without trouble today - we had problems in the pits, we had problem in warm-ups, we had problems with our timer box - but it all came together. My Dad made some great calls on the starting line. It was getting hotter all day and going away, and he kept up with it and didn't get crazy. He had a great day.
"As bad as I felt about the first two races, and I felt really bad about it, it was a lot different than last year when we didn't qualify because the car ran well. We'd go out and test and it would make runs and I kept saying we could win a race, we just have to get everything right. We even tried today to fail, you know, try and do things and brake and not go down the track. But we kept up with it, and I could just tell by the way it was running that this day was going to come again, I just didn't know when and didn't know it was going to be this quick. It finally happened and here it is. It's tough, but the fans are what keep you excited out here. That's why you come out here. The fans out here they come out here and support you and your family and it keeps everybody together. I've been driving 18 years now, and it just keeps me going."
 Tim Wilkerson (Randy Anderson photo) |
Tim Wilkerson knows that it doesn’t really matter where you qualify, just as long as you qualify so you can play on race day. And play is what Wilkerson and his Levi, Ray & Shoup Funny Car did, making the quickest pass of the day and bringing the crowd to its feet Sunday at the O’Reilly Spring Nationals at Houston Raceway Park.
Preparing for first-round was stressful for Wilkerson, as he watched several of the cars in front of him in the left lane, smoke the tires. But Wilkerson was determined not to let the menacing lane get the better of him, as he impressed everyone at Houston Raceway Park with a stunning win at 4.870 at 319.37 mph over Ron Capps’ 4.953. To top it off, Wilkerson’s run was the quickest of round one and gave him lane choice over his next opponent, long time friend, Del Worsham. But for this round, Wilkerson didn’t fare as well, as he dropped a cylinder at the hit and slowed to a 5.113. This allowed eventual event winner, Worsham to get the win with his 4.917.
“That was a good run, first round,” said Wilkerson. “It was trying to do that all weekend as we tried to get our fuel pump problem fixed. I was happy to take out Capps because they are such a tough car. There is so much money over there and so many smart people, that any time you can beat any of those guys, you feel pretty good. But I’m having trouble getting past the single car guys. In Gainesville it was (Gary) Densham and today Worsham. Looks like I can’t race anyone whose name ends in an ‘m’. I just need to race the big cars and be over it.
“On that run against Del it put a hole out at the step. But this weather is so bad, that you can’t predict what’s going to happen. I talked to Donnie (Bender) at Don Prudhomme’s and he put a hole out too. They had a fresh blower and ours had one run on it. So, I guess in this kind of weather, we just have to convince ourselves to strip it every run. And that’s tough because we only have two good ones, but I’ve got more coming. Then I have to get them over to the dyno and check them.
“The ones we tested after Gainesville aren’t going to be what I want yet,” Wilkerson continued. “They still have a lot of work in front of them before we can run them. I think I can buy a couple just like the ones we’re running now. With how good the car is running, we really need to do that. The problem is we just can’t go and buy a bunch at a time like we did before. Now, I’m buying them one at a time and checking them on the dyno and fondling them and loving them and trying to make sure they’re caressed correctly. There are a lot of measurement problems with blowers and if they’re not right, they don’t work good. And I want our motor combination to be working just right, before we start testing our new car, so that we have a baseline to know how the new car is working.”