Championship Drag Racing

O'Reilly Fall Nationals
Dallas
(Oct. 9-12)

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Phil Burkart Jr. Checker, Schucks, Kragen Funny Car

Reports: Sunday Saturday Friday Pre-race

Their quest: Success, of course, but maybe also just a break, some luck, or one little ounce of good fortune.

The final result: One of the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen team's most impressive weekends, but in the end the final slate showed no trip to the final round, no Winner's Circle, no trophy. Heads were shook, eyes were rolled, brows were wiped, but in conclusion Team CSK could only take solace in their own accomplishments, regardless of the actual scoreboard results.

One notable thing about this Dallas event was the completion of all four qualifying runs, and all four eliminations runs, in the actual allotted and scheduled time. A deluge of rain did hit Dallas, of course, but Mother Nature missed on this one, like a big slugger flailing at a change up. The downpour hit a day early and, though the grounds were muddy, the event was completed under unfamiliar conditions. The air was actually dry.

It did take one session for the track to come around, but by Friday night Del Worsham found himself in the No. 3 spot, with a strong 4.865, while Phil Burkart spent the night still looking for his potential, in the No. 13 position.

On Saturday, the field shook itself out and Worsham's 4.865 put him 4th, while Burkart jumped up to a 4.922 while everyone else was slowing down, landing him in the No. 9 spot. Though Dallas is always capable of providing big speeds and low times, the challenge inherent in this year's event left three good cars outside the field, and every member of Worsham Racing was proud to be a part of the proceedings on Sunday.

During eliminations, Worsham went first, as the first car to run on Sunday. First "car" is meaningful, as Jack Wyatt was unable to answer the bell and Worsham ran a solo run in the first round. Not wanting to appear to have lucked into anything, the CSK team put every ounce of the energy into this tune-up, in the hopes they'd prove to everyone in attendance that no "freebies" were handed to this group. That they did.

Worsham's 4.810 was not only quicker than his qualifying time, not only low E.T. of the round, it was low E.T. of the event. There was no luck involved.

"First of all, Jack Wyatt is a pro and he did a very professional thing," Worsham said. "They were pitted right across from us, and we could see they were having problems, but some teams would have hidden things and played games. Jack came right over and told me that their problems were too big and they weren't going to make it. We knew we had a chance to be aggressive and push the car, to see what the track would take."

Burkart then followed with his first round race against Scotty Cannon, and this, ladies and gentlemen, was a great drag race. Both drivers did their job at the lights, and left nearly deadlocked. Burkart did have a slight 2-thousandths edge, but in effect the cars left together. They stayed together as they tore down the track, side-by-side. Burkart's 4.849 was second quickest of the session, only behind his teammate, and like his teammate he lowered his event-best by quite a margin. More importantly, he got the win light.

"That was a tight race, and a great race," Burkart said. "Scotty was up for it, I was up for it, the tuners were obviously up for it. When it's the eight and nine cars running, you can't really call it an upset when the nine car wins, because that pairing is the two closest cars on the ladder. But we knew he'd be tough, and we got the win. Kudos to them, they ran great, but we got there first."

In the second round, Burkart had to face John Force. Unintimidated, Burkart left first. He ran well, but his Firebird mysteriously slowed just a bit and when Force posted a 4.833, Burkart's 4.943 wasn't enough.

"We're not sure why it slowed, but it slowed down early in the run, especially in the first 60-feet," Burkart said. "We were plowing down there with him after that point, but I couldn't catch him.

"To me, this whole Funny Car thing is a love/hate relationship," Burkart summarized. "I love it when we win. I hate it when we lose. It's as simple as that."

Worsham faced an always tough Whit Bazemore in round two. Desperate to make a final charge at Tony Pedregon for the POWERade Championship, Bazemore and his team left nothing on the table in this second round tussle. As much as Del Worsham wanted to win this round, Whit Bazemore had to win it. Bazemore's 4.831 was his best lap of the weekend, and was easily quick enough to win any other second round race. Unfortunately for him, Bazemore's run wasn't good enough to beat Del Worsham. Worsham's second consecutive 4.81 (this time a 4.819) took Bazemore out, and moved Worsham on to his fifth semi-final of the year.

In that semi, Worsham had to face the same John Force who had taken out his teammate in round two. No one in Camp CSK wanted anything more than a payback. Having won this race one year ago, every member of this team could taste a repeat.

As the lights turned green, Force took a full swing of the axe at the tree, and his semi-clairvoyant .020 left Worsham behind. Though both cars tore to the finish line and the margin of victory was nearly impossible to discern, Force's shot at the tree earned him the win. Worsham's strong 4.867 was not quite enough to overtake Force's slower 4.888. Still the quickest car on the property, Worsham's CSK Pontiac was eliminated on a hole-shot.

"There's one good way to look at this. The guy who is the greatest driver in the history of the Funny Car class, probably in the history of drag racing, had to take a shot at the tree to beat us," Worsham said. "He knew we had him covered. He knew he had to leave on me, and I'm not easy to leave on. He got us this time. Fair enough, and I shook his hand. But we had the best car here today. We didn't win, but we ran great for three straight rounds. One of these days, it will come back to us. We're not down.

"We're racing in the here-and-now, but we're also racing for 2004 right now. We're building our program, molding a great team together, and looking ahead to another POWERade points chase. We may have to win every round by a thousandth, but we'll take our chances and we'll do our best. I think the best part of today was running the 4.81 in the first round with no one in the other lane. So many times you see teams get a single and blow the tires off or blow up. We pounded out low E.T. of the weekend. We're okay. We plan to win the next one."

Dallas, Saturday: Phil Burkart stepped up in the heat, all the way to a 4.922 when nearly everyone else was slowing down:

"We saw a lot of problems out there in Top Fuel and from the first few Funny Cars, so to go out there and run a 4.92 was great. It wasn't perfect. though. We broke a rod right when we crossed the finish line, and that chewed the motor up. We have more, and we have a fresh motor in the car right now, but we don't like having to do that. The dream weekend around here is to make eight laps and keep the motor in the car the whole time."

Burkart then smoked the tires at mid-track, ending up in the No. 9 spot:

"Honestly, I thought I had it going straight, and I knew it was hauling in a big way that time. I was right about the power, the incremental numbers were right there with the best of the event, but once we looked at the video we could see the car was just driving for the center line and it smoked the tires when it got out of the groove. Whether it was going to stay planted all the way if we'd have kept it in the groove, I don't know, but it was trying to run low E.T. of the whole deal. I'll be ready tomorrow. We'll all be ready tomorrow."

Burkart will face Scotty Cannon in round one. He is 1-0 versus Cannon this season.

Dallas, Friday: Del Worsham and Phil Burkart, Jr., drivers of the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Pontiac Funny Cars, after Friday's qualifying sessions in Dallas.

Worsham smoked the tires just past half-track, landing in the No. 14 spot after one session.

"We were pretty aggressive in the front half of that run, and obviously just a little too hopped up out there at 660," Worsham said. "If we can do it, I'd like to try to keep it as aggressive to 330 and try to calm it down from there. If we do that, and the track comes around like I think it will, we'll see some 4.80's tonight."

Burkart opened with a full pass, but mostly on seven cylinders, ending up in the No. 7 spot with a 5.090.

"It launched really well, but it put a hole out on the right side about 1.4 seconds into the run, and you're not going to run at the front of the pack on seven," he said. "It was definitely pulling to the right a little, and not running anywhere near as snappy as most of the runs we've made lately, but I wanted to leg it down there if only to get us a later slot in tonight's session."

In Round 2, Worsham powered to a clean and straight 4.865 to move up to the No. 3 spot overnight.

"Man, it was so nice to do that," Worsham said. "Since the explosion in Reading all I've wanted is one good straight lap, one good solid lap, and then we'd all be back to normal and it would all be good again. To me, right now, that was perfect. When we got back to the pit, I told the guys to put it straight in the trailer, grab a beer, and let's go watch the rest of the session from the grandstand. They are so tired, and have worked so hard, they deserve a break tonight. We found a crack in the chassis late last night, and instead of being back at the hotel watching TV, the guys were here working late getting the back-up chassis ready for today. I'm really proud of them."

Burkart surprisingly lost traction well down track, ending the session in the No. 13 spot.

"What a surprise that was," he said. "It was way down there, way past where we might normally encounter tire spin, so maybe something odd happened down there. We're taking a look at the data now, trying to figure that one out. As good as this car has been running, it's surprising to have something like that happen."

Dallas, pre-race: Phil Burkart took over the driving chores in the blue Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Pontiac Funny Car immediately after the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals on Labor Day. Since then, through a rain delay in Reading, trips to Memphis and Chicago, and a return engagement to Maple Grove Raceway, the new CSK blue team driver has made his presence known in the Funny Car class with five round wins in three races.

This weekend, at the O'Reilly Fall Nationals at the Texas Motorplex, Burkart and his blue CSK group will aim to emulate the boss while they continue to impact the class.

One year ago, Burkart's boss and teammate, Del Worsham, took home the trophy at the Motorplex, and every member of Team CSK is hyped up and ready to rock this weekend.

"Del simply ran great there last year, and he pretty much just ran right over four other teams on the way to the win," Burkart said. "Both Checker, Schuck's, Kragen teams have plenty of good data for the Dallas track, and the best part about that is that this track changes so little from year to year. If the weather is the same, the track will be the same.

"It's the only all-concrete track on the tour, the weather this time of year in Dallas is generally pretty good, and the performance in Dallas is usually very good. You can't just stand all over it and let it rip, you have to know what you're doing. I mean, there's no track in the world that is so good you don't need to have a tune-up. But if you can make a lot of power, the Motorplex will take most of it. Some big things have happened at the Motorplex, and this ought to be one big weekend."

Burkart's ultimate goal, of course, is to win the race this weekend. For a guy entering only his fourth race as part of Team CSK, that goal is a surprisingly attainable one. Burkart's car has run near the front of the pack at every race since he took over the seat, and advanced as far as the final round two weeks ago in Chicago. A small oil leak prevented Burkart from competing in that final, so perhaps only that cruel twist of fate separates us from talking about Burkart going for his second win in three weeks, rather than having him looking for his first since 1999.

"Who knows, maybe we would have won that, or maybe not," Burkart said. "Tony Pedregon ran very well in the other lane in that final, so it's not like we had a walk-over and the oil leak cost us a sure thing. We would've had to have run perfectly to beat him, but the very fact that this car was in the final, and was also in the final at Indy, Pomona, and Atlanta with Johnny Gray driving, tells you all you need to know about its potential. This car can win any race it enters. And guess what? We're entered at Dallas."

Beside the task at hand on the Motorplex track, Burkart will also get his first taste of another side of Team CSK racing this weekend, as he makes his first public appearance off-site, representing Worsham Racing and Checker, Schuck's, Kragen.

"There's a big autograph session set up for the SpeedZone in Dallas, and I'll be going there on Thursday night to meet the fans and sign some photo cards," Burkart said. "It will be my first time doing one of these as part of Team CSK. Maybe I won't be as excited about these promotional things down the road some day, but I think it's pretty cool to be doing this sort of stuff right now. In a couple of weeks, we have a big autograph thing in Las Vegas too, at the ESPN Zone right on The Strip. They tell me that's the biggest one of the year, so I'm looking forward to that as well.

"Heck, I'm just looking forward to everything we do around here. I'm having the time of my life, and I'm driving a very fast car."

A fast car, indeed. On a very fast track. It could all add up to another career highlight for Phil Burkart. Well, that and the autograph session, too.