Del Worsham was prepared for a big NHRA weekend at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma,
California. Despite a great history of strong runs, he was denied the giant
payoff as the sun set on Sunday.
Del Worsham and blue CSK Team
He defeated Ron Capps in round one, defeated Jeff Arend in round two,
defeated Robert Hight in the semi-final and lost to John Force in the final
round. Worsham paced the sport’s greatest icon for the length of the 1,320 foot
Sonoma track, only to come up inches short of this first win since late in the
2005 season.
Jeff Arend in blue CSK Funny Car
Del Worsham and Jeff Arend use K&N Products
Worsham went into the race 11th in points and wasted no time qualifying. On
Friday, the Checker, Schuck’s, Kragen driver scored his fastest qualifying time
of the year, a 4.774 at 322.04 mph.
The Funny Car driver paced the class in his blue CSK car with K&N Engineering
products. Worsham finished fifth on the ladder Saturday and equaled his best
qualifying effort of the season. He was matched with points leader Ron Capps for
a first round date.
“We haven’t had many easy rounds all year,” said Worsham. “But to finally come
out here and really get a great handle on it, and qualify as well as we did, and
still get the points leader in round one, it seemed to me that we could have a
great day in front of us if we could get out of round one. Ron and I are great
friends, but he usually wears me out when we race each other.”
Capps got off the line with a microscopic edge, but Worsham won the round. He
powered to a clean 4.889 to take the big win with room to spare over Capps’
4.986. “It was a huge win, no matter how you cut it,” said Worsham. “It was
nothing but huge.”
Teammates Jeff Arend and Del Worsham ran against each other in round two. Light
prize fighters, both teams plotted their strategy independently in their
respective corners and both teams came out firing. Worsham managed a sizable
jump at the tree, grabbing a 22-thousandths edge as the two cars left the line.
Worsham took a hole-shot victory, taking the round with a solid 4.929 to win by
technically 5-thousandths of a second.
Arend defeated Tony Pedregon in round one but lost to his teammate in round two.
“Jeff is one of the best at the line,” said Worsham. “Our blue team is running
well. They put a great lap on the board and it was pretty major for all of us to
be headed to the semi-final.”
In the semi, Robert Hight came into the race in the No. 2 spot on the points
list. But Worsham once again, got off the line first at the flash of amber and
rocketed to a clean 4.898. Worsham moved up to his second final round of the
season and he would be up against legend John Force.
“It felt like our day,” said Worsham. “We went up there to beat John.” It didn’t
work out that way. Force managed to pull away in the last 300 feet, after
Worsham led for most of the lap. A dropped cylinder was the problem.
“We did just about everything right, but we came up a few inches short at the
end,” he said. “Our day will come.”
Follow Del Worsham and Jeff Arend throughout the racing season at the
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