Three races into this 2007 season (which is now six races old, ) Del Worsham had already stopped thinking about the POWERade points chase. He seemed buried in 20th place, barely clinging to a place on the sheet, and he had bigger things to worry about than moving up to 19th or 18th. Now, just three races later, a suddenly solid and resurgent Worsham is willing to take a peek at the points list, to do the same mental mathematics every driver knows so well. “If we go X amount of rounds, and they go Y, we’ll move up to Z. “
After another solid outing made his early season woes seem even more like ancient history, Worsham could now bravely open at least one eye to quickly look at the rankings, where he found himself sitting in 9th place. Apparently, the earlier reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated.
“It’s been getting better, and the results have shown that, ” Worsham said. “We’re not even close to being all the way there yet, but we’re so much better off than we were for the first three races, and most of last year, it’s pretty cool to have come this far. At Gainesville, we found a couple of things that were not only costing us performance, but were also costing us a lot of motors. We’ve got that pretty much straightened out now, so we’re just trying to put some good laps on the board, to keep building on this. Put it this way, I no longer think we’d have to be the luckiest team in the world to win a race now. We’re not ready to dominate, but we’re completely ready to compete. I couldn’t have said that as recently as Gainesville. “
This Atlanta weekend was marked by more than a few notable happenings. For one thing, the annual Georgia rain only visited on Thursday, leaving all three days of professional racing to be contested in nearly perfect conditions. Secondly, after some naysayers had questioned the scheduling of this event on the same weekend as the NASCAR race in Talladega, the southern drag racing fans absolutely packed the large Atlanta Dragway grandstands every day, coming early and staying late, to enjoy their favorite form of motorsport. And finally, the rotation of the albatross known as the dreaded DNQ continued, as big hitters Tommy Johnson, Cruz Pedregon, Jerry Toliver, and Bob Gilbertson failed to make the field on this weekend (stay tuned for more on this subject, as the DNQ mantle will surely continue to make the rounds throughout the Funny Car class. )
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