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Whether it's a sign of the economic times, a revolutionary trend to give single-car operations the benefits of a multicar attack fleet, or a combination of both, the 2008 NHRA POWERade season will see at least two unlikely alliances shaping the competitive fields in both Top Fuel Dragster and Funny Car.

Last month, Del Worsham announced his CSK Auto two-car Funny Car team would be reduced to a single-car enterprise in '08, which has now led to a partnership with Top Fuel team owner Dexter Tuttle, who has hired Alan Bradshaw to take on the driving assignment this season. For the Worsham team, the alliance with Tuttle helps to fill the void inevitably created when the CSK "Blue Team" and driver Jeff Arend were dropped from the program at the end of 2007.

"Dexter is one of the best owners in the sport," said Worsham, who will be looking to recover from a disappointing '07 run that saw him finish the year without a national event win. "He and I have had many a conversation about our approach to racing and our philosophies on being competitive. Racing together as a unit was something that just seemed to be a good step forward for both of us, and we're convinced it's going to improve both of our programs this season."

For Tuttle, the search continues for a full-time sponsor, which would allow him and his team to race at all 24 NHRA POWERade events in 2008. In the meantime -- despite having only a 15-race game plan in place -- Tuttle's operation will set up shop directly adjacent to Worsham's CSK base camp in the pit areas of the events at which both will competing.

At the same time, another Top Fuel/Funny Car "hybrid" team is preparing to join forces this year, comprised of one of the sport's genuine legends and a hard-working veteran taking yet another swing at his first category championship.

Don "The Snake" Prudhomme and Tim Wilkerson have agreed to race side-by-side in 2008 in an arrangement quite similar to the Worsham-Tuttle duopoly. At the conclusion of 2007, it was announced Prudhomme would be suspending the Funny Car effort that saw driver Tommy Johnson Jr. released, thus making Prudhomme's Top Fuel team with two-time POWERade champion Larry Dixon Snake Racing's primary focus.

Wilkerson, who races with a far leaner budget than some of the more heavily financed teams in the fuel classes, is one of the few remaining Funny Car stars in the NHRA who not only drives the race car, but gets his hands dirty in the preparation and between-round maintenance of his Levi, Ray & Shoup Chevy Impala SS. For both teams, the new partnership is expected to offer many mutual benefits.

"You have to admire what Tim has accomplished with his hard work and dedication," said Prudhomme, a four-time NHRA POWERade Funny Car champion. "He already has a good relationship with our tuning team of Donnie Bender and Todd Smith, and that will make both of our teams stronger as they continue to work together."

"This will be a new thing for us," said Wilkerson. "It's a setup that can't help but make us better. Having the chance to exchange tuning data and double the amount of input we'll have when making decisions on our combination -- and what we can offer the guys tuning Larry's dragster -- is something we can really get excited about."

In a sport in which every run down the quarter-mile produces a winner and a loser, this latest move toward the creative conjoining of disparate drag racing outfits is leading to a most uncommon commodity within the NHRA POWERade series -- a win-win situation.

And there may be more coming.

Bill Stephens covers NHRA for ESPN.com