![\"Del](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Del-Worsham-mug-min.jpg\")
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It\u2019s always sad to see a truly talented racer needing to take a hiatus from the sport – especially a racer who has championships in two different NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series categories. But that\u2019s exactly what Del Worsham is going to do. He\u2019ll park his Toyota Camry Funny Car until the Toyota NHRA Sonoma Nationals, set for July 27-29 at Sonoma Raceway in California.<\/p>\n
Worsham, who won both a Top Fuel title (with Al-Anabi Racing in 2011) and Funny Car honors at Kalitta Motorsports in 2015, returned to his family enterprise last year. Working together with father Chuck and a small crew, Worsham is in 10th place in the 2018 standings and has consistently run in the mid-pack area thus far in the season. Still, the organization opted to park and pursue sufficient funding prior to their late July return, following this weekend\u2019s 31st annual NHRA Spring Nationals in Houston.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some ways it\u2019s one of the most difficult decisions I\u2019ve ever made, but in other ways it\u2019s one of the easiest,\u201d Del Worsham contemplated. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s any secret that we\u2019re underfunded and kind of piecing this thing together. We had a little bit of a rough start, performance-wise, in Pomona and Phoenix, but we fixed the issues and we\u2019ve been really consistent and real contenders the last two races. I expect no less here in Houston.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Del](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Del-Worsham-action-min.jpg\")
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It\u2019s no secret that NHRA nitro racing is an expensive proposition, even when there are no substantial breakages during a race weekend. \u201cWhat I need now is time. These cars are expensive and they do consume almost all of your time when you have a small organization like ours. I work on it, service it, drive the transporter, tune it and I drive it,\u201d Worsham explained. \u201cMy dad and I have a very talented, loyal and hard-working crew, but I need to put 100 percent of my focus into continuing some conversations we\u2019re having with a number of companies that already see what we have to offer. Hopefully we can start a few additional conversations, as well. We will have the car ready to go, so if we can land a partnership we\u2019ll be able to race at a moment\u2019s notice. Otherwise we\u2019ll aim for Sonoma.\u201d<\/p>\n
After working as a hired hand for both Al-Anabi Racing (2009-2011) and Kalitta Motorsports – both driving and crew chiefing for the latter organization – Del Worsham felt the need to work, once again, with his father Chuck and the family\u2019s operation. He drove the family-owned Funny Car from 1991 through 2008, much of that with backing from auto parts retailer CSK Auto.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made that decision with my heart and I\u2019d do it again in a heartbeat,\u201d Worsham said of his return to Worsham-Fink Racing. \u201cThis is what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be. A lot of it felt like 1996 all over again, but it\u2019s family, and I wanted to race with my dad. I\u2019ve won two championships and a lot of races, but the next bucket list item was doing that with my dad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Del Worsham is parking his Toyota Camry Funny Car until the Toyota NHRA Sonoma Nationals.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":50856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3470,5029,3399],"tags":[5614,79,38,41,7,1632,73],"class_list":["post-50854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","category-nhra","tag-anne-proffit","tag-del-worsham","tag-funny-car","tag-news","tag-nhra","tag-racing","tag-top-fuel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Del-Worsham-mug-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-dee","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50857,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50854\/revisions\/50857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}