{"id":16560,"date":"2018-04-20T20:09:10","date_gmt":"2018-04-21T01:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=16560"},"modified":"2018-04-20T20:09:10","modified_gmt":"2018-04-21T01:09:10","slug":"del-worsham-announces-planned-hiatus-from-racing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/20\/del-worsham-announces-planned-hiatus-from-racing\/","title":{"rendered":"Del Worsham announces planned hiatus from racing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy of Bob Wilber, <\/em>Worsham & Fink Racing<\/em><\/p>\n

HOUSTON, Texas \u2014 While competing at this weekend’s NHRA SpringNationals<\/a> in Houston, Funny Car star and two-time NHRA World Champion Del Worsham<\/strong> announced that his racing operation will be temporarily parked and on the sidelines after the Houston event, while he continues to pursue additional funding for his organization. At this point in time, Worsham has plans for a return to NHRA competition at the Toyota NHRA Sonoma Nationals, July 27-29 at Sonoma Raceway in California. If funding can be secured in the interim, the team will be ready to compete immediately.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Del Worsham. NHRA photo<\/p><\/div>\n

Worsham has competed at all four NHRA Mello Yello national events prior to Houston, with backing from a consortium of associate sponsors, and has compiled a round record of 2-4 while earning 167 points, good enough for the No. 10 spot in the standings. His 2018 Toyota Camry has been consistent and fast at the prior two races, in Gainesville and Las Vegas, but the full-time search for additional marketing partners will be his primary focus moving forward.<\/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 Worsham said. \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’ve been really consistent and real contenders at the last two races. I expect no less here in Houston.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Del Worsham. NHRA photo<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhat I need now is time. These cars are expensive to run, even when things go perfectly, and in addition to that they 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. My 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

The veteran driver and tuner is assisted by his father Chuck and a small crew. He is one of only three drivers to ever win the NHRA World Championship in both Top Fuel (2011) and Funny Car (2015), along with Kenny Bernstein and Gary Scelzi. He drove his family owned car from 1991 through 2008, much of that with backing from auto parts retailer CSK Auto. From 2009 through 2011 he drove for Al Anabi Racing, first in a Funny Car and then in a Top Fuel Dragster in 2011, when he won the championship. After one season as a crew chief he returned to the Funny Car driver\u2019s seat, for Kalitta Motorsports, in 2013. In 2015 he added the NHRA Funny Car championship to his mantle.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Worsham returned to the family operation, racing with his father Chuck and much of their current crew.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made that decision with my heart and I\u2019d do it again in a heartbeat,\u201d Worsham said. \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. If any of the conversations we\u2019re having right now turn into a major partnership, that company is going to be working with a championship-caliber team that\u2019s ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further announcements will be forthcoming if Worsham\u2019s quest for additional marketing partners is successful prior to the Sonoma race, thereby allowing an earlier return to racing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy of Bob Wilber, Worsham & Fink Racing HOUSTON, Texas \u2014 While competing at this weekend’s NHRA SpringNationals in Houston, Funny Car star and two-time NHRA World Champion Del Worsham announced that his racing operation will be temporarily parked and on the sidelines after the Houston event, while he continues to pursue additional funding for his organization. At this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16563,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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":[4],"tags":[310,6,194,133],"class_list":["post-16560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhra","tag-del-worsham","tag-nhra","tag-nhra-springnationals","tag-royal-purple-raceway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/2018_Worsham_Del_Action.jpg?fit=2250%2C1500&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-4j6","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16560"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16565,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16560\/revisions\/16565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}