NHRA News: Lessons learned should take Worsham to a new level (10/17/2004)

Lessons learned should take Worsham to a new level

Contributed by Bob Wilber
10/17/2004

"When you're fighting for third place, you have (some) leeway. When you're fighting for first, everything has a bigger impact."
– Del Worsham

With two races remaining on the 2004 NHRA POWERade schedule, Del Worsham has already had the best year of his professional life. Having never before won more than four races in a season, his current total of five race victories leads the Funny Car class. His 36 round wins are also more than he's ever won in a year, eclipsing the 35 round win mark he set in 2001 and 2002.

Yet, instead of heading into the final two races battling John Force for the POWERade championship, Worsham finds himself fighting Gary Scelzi for second place. Through it all, the popular Checker, Schuck's, Kragen driver has absorbed and analyzed many lessons, and sees himself better armed for a title run in 2005.

Worsham can't help but look back over the 2004 campaign, scanning for key moments or critical setbacks as he critiques his team's performance. A round here, a sloppy qualifying performance there, and a frustrating summer slump all added up to allowing Force to get away. Now, Worsham is concentrating on finishing strong and taking to heart the lessons learned, as he and his CSK group prepare for the future.

Worsham's Checker, Schuck's, Kragen car is a
perfect 5-0 when the trophy is on the line.
Racers Edge Photography

"The rule changes hurt us the most but other than that there were only a couple of small things I can pinpoint," Worsham said "I can't look back and see any really glaring mistakes or really bad decisions. We weren't perfect but we were generally very good. The bottom line is, we've had a great year but we're playing at what is really a new level for us. When you're fighting for fourth place or third place, you have a certain amount of leeway. When you're fighting for first place, every negative thing has a much bigger impact. The stakes are higher, and the competition is obviously much tougher. We've learned a lot about what it takes to play at this level."

Worsham's reference to the fuel and tire rules changes may be the most critical piece of a puzzle that saw him fall from first place to fourth during a critical stretch of summer racing. His response to the summer slump, however, may represent the most important reason why he and many others see Team CSK as a bona fide contender for the POWERade crown in 2005, and beyond. When the going got tough for Worsham this summer, he and his team gathered themselves, made bold decisions to change their approach, and came back out firing. It may be the comeback story of the year.

"We got buried by the new rules," Worsham said. "All of a sudden the same tune-up that had been so good to us for the last four years just didn't work. We went from leading the class to being really uncompetitive. We could have collapsed as a team. Our chemistry could have fallen apart right along with our performance, but we hung in there. After Indy, we made big changes and we trusted ourselves. It's been all good ever since."

All good, indeed. Between Denver, when the new rules were first instituted, and Indianapolis six races later, Worsham earned just four round wins. Equally bad was his slide from the top of the points sheet down to fourth, and the trend didn't exactly give Worsham fans much reason for hope.

Worsham has had that winning feeling a career-best five times in 2004.
Racers Edge Photography

Since Indy, where Worsham and his father Chuck made wholesale changes to the team's tuning approach, the popular driver has given his fans many more reasons to smile. He immediately tore through the competition in Dallas and Chicago, winning back-to-back national events at racetracks where top-level performance is always a must. His follow-up semifinal appearance in Reading gave him 10 consecutive elimination round wins. The slump, all of a sudden, seemed like ancient history. Perhaps more importantly, the lessons to be learned were revealed, and Worsham now quietly nods as he acknowledges the impact.

"Sometimes you learn lessons about specific things and sometimes you learn lessons about the big picture," he said. "We didn't do anything wrong to get into the slump. The lesson wasn't just that we should have reacted quicker to the rules, because there was no way for us to know our tune-up was going to be so much more effected in relation to other people's tune-ups. The lesson was not quitting. We are a stronger team right now than we've ever been. The lesson was to trust ourselves that we would adapt and we would be competitive again.

"To come back out and win at two very fast tracks was a huge deal for us. We've always been a good team on hot tricky tracks, but we showed recently we can outrun people too. Our guys have gone through a lot this year and one of the key lessons for them was to believe they belonged at the top of the points. It's like the mountain top. If you look around or look down, it's easy to get scared or intimidated. Now they know they belong there."

Looking ahead, it's Worsham's job to take the 2004 experience and use it to better his team's chances in 2005. Part of that includes finishing strong this season, with Las Vegas and Pomona still on the agenda. A strong finish would serve two purposes, as it would help Worsham win the battle for second place while also positioning his team for another long and difficult campaign in '05.

"We want to finish second, I make no bones about that," Worsham said. "It's important to us. To do it, we have to finish strong, and keep Gary Scelzi behind us. We're only 36 points ahead of him, so we have to win rounds ourselves. We sure can't count on him losing.

"Finishing strong will also keep us on a roll going into next year. We can race with Force. We can race with Scelzi and [Whit] Bazemore and [Eric] Medlen and everyone else out here. The next step for us is to do it consistently all year. The fact we've got more wins than Force but he's 260 points ahead of us tells you all you need to know about staying out of slumps and winning rounds even when you're not winning races. I think we've learned that lesson. It's just up to us to go out and do it."

Like a good student, Worsham is studying hard, digesting data, and learning those lessons. Now, he hopes to take this knowledge and experience and put it to good use. Success like that would cap off this career year and set the stage for even greater things.

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