NHRA News: Puzzle taking shape for Team CSK (4/8/2004)

Puzzle taking shape for Team CSK

4/8/2004

"The goal was to create one big team that just happened to race two cars. We've done that."
– Del Worsham

In the early autumn of 1999, Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Funny Car driver Del Worsham made a startling announcement. His hard working yet undeniably under-funded team would expand to two Funny Cars in 2000, as CSK Auto stepped up to give the Worsham family a real chance to compete. Reaction to the announcement ran the gamut from complete support to skepticism, but Worsham knew the truth: This would be a long process.

Looking back now, analyzing the past four seasons and the early part of 2004, Worsham can clearly see the path his program has taken with a perspective that can only come through hindsight.

Without any doubt, Team CSK has accomplished its mission of becoming one of the elite programs in the NHRA Funny Car class, especially for Worsham's red team which has won 13 races since the start of the 2001 season. What is just as rewarding for Worsham, though, is seeing the blue team truly find its stride, as evidenced by teammate Phil Burkart's big win in Las Vegas April 4. Finally, now in its fifth year as a two-car program, Team CSK seems to have "arrived."

Building a winner

Wally trophies are becoming a regular part of the CSK pit, with visits after three of four events this year.
DelWorsham.com

"It's like a huge jigsaw puzzle," Worsham said, referring to the construction and development of the program. "There are so many pieces, and they all have to fit together perfectly. It can get frustrating when it's all being built, because you live in the moment and you want it all to happen right there and then. You need the benefit of looking back over time to appreciate it, and I'm starting to appreciate it all now."

Clearly, the addition of the second car made an early and important impact on Worsham's red team. The additional data, testing opportunities, and resources all combined to help jumpstart Worsham's career in 2001.

After earning two victories in his 1991 rookie season, Worsham had only been able to claim one additional trophy in the 1990s when he broke the drought by sweeping through four rounds at Seattle in 1999.

In 2001, one year after adding the blue team to the program, he earned four trips to the Winner's Circle. In 2002, he duplicated the feat, earning four more wins. In '03, three trophies were handed over and Worsham could no longer be seen as anything but a contender.

Still, as important as the red car's performance was, the blue team's development remained an open item on the agenda.

Much like an expansion franchise in any other team sport, the blue team was originally formed around a combination of transplanted veterans and a few young rookies. In its second season, with Dave Fletcher tuning and Frank Pedregon driving, the blue squad seemed to be hitting a solid stride, winning the Atlanta race and the Budweiser Shootout. After that 2001 campaign, however, the blue team seemed to fall into a slump.

Making it click

As teammates, Worsham (left) and Burkart's relationship is very different then most employer/employee pairings.
DelWorsham.com

"Looking back on it now, I can see where we made a few errors in our plan," Worsham said. "Because we had a very small shop in Southern California back then, we couldn't base both teams out of there. So we put the blue team in Auburn, Ind., where we have our Midwest shop. By having them 2,000 miles away, it kept us from having the real 'all for one, and one for all' attitude you really need. It wasn't fair to Dave or the crew. By 2003, we knew we had to make this all one big team if we were ever going to have two really solid cars on the track."

Worsham did just that, moving the organization into a new shop in Anaheim and bringing the blue team west. He then looked inside the program to promote two deserving young men, Marc Denner and Chris Cunningham, into the co-crew chief positions. The next piece in this new-look puzzle came about in late 2003 when Johnny Gray resigned as driver and Burkart was put in the seat. What had been a pile of disconnected pieces was starting to come together, and as it did it began to provide a glimpse at the overall picture.

"It was all one big learning curve, and it was experience we needed to live through, so it's a good thing that we found our way through it and learned from it all," Worsham said. "We learned how things work with two cars, and we learned how some things don't work with two cars. For too long, though, the red team was getting all the benefits while the blue team struggled to find their place. That's all changing now, I think."

Two-pronged attack
Denner and Cunningham tuned the blue CSK car to four final rounds in 2003, though they came up empty in each attempt. With Burkart beginning the 2004 season as the full-time driver, the two co-crew chiefs were confident they had turned the corner, and were equally certain that Worsham's red team would continue to sizzle.

"In many respects 2003 was like starting over for us," Denner said. "Chris and I had to look at it like it was all new because we had a whole new crew, a new shop, and we were just getting started as crew chiefs. We're here to win, for Checker, Schuck's, Kragen and for the Worshams. We're also here to help Del by taking out the other cars in the class and giving him good data, and I think it's obvious the red guys are one of the best teams in the sport. We feel like we're living up to what was asked of us now and it's a pretty exciting thing to be a part of."

The two-car approach has both Checker Schuck's Kragen drivers filling starring roles in front of standing-room-only crowds on Race Day.
DelWorsham.com

"Exciting" has been a word used quite often when referring to Team CSK in 2004. Only four races into the season, Worsham already has two wins and sits in the points lead, while Burkart has his new trophy and is solidly in the POWERade Top 10 (fifth after Las Vegas.) Though the puzzle is far from complete, Worsham feels like the momentum is starting to build.

"First of all, this class is so tough we never feel like we can take anything for granted," he said. "We come to every race confident, but we know how hard it is to qualify, and we absolutely know how hard it is to win any round, much less four of them on Sunday. I just think we've built a really great team, based around good people who care for each other and work together so well. The goal, when we moved the blue team west, was to create one big team that just happened to race two cars. We've done that, and anyone who walks by our pit on race day can see it. We all work together. We share the success, and we share the blame.

"The road to this point has been long, and there have been some potholes, but we're getting there. We're not there yet, and there's a long way to go before I think I'll ever feel that we're actually getting near our goal. But I'm proud of what we've done, and I'm very proud of the people we have here. Every crew member we have has had an impact on what we've done. Marc and Chris have had an impact on what we've done. Phil Burkart has had an impact on what we've done. If we just keep maturing, and learning, we can go pretty far. That's the big picture."

That big picture may be starting to take shape, as each small piece to the puzzle is tapped into place.

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