Worsham off to quick start at Al-Anabi
Not many people can say their career was saved by a sheikh and a guru.
Del Worsham happily can make that unusual claim, one year after wondering whether his racing days were done after 17 years as an NHRA Funny Car driver.
The sheikh is His Highness Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad Al-Thani, a 22-year-old drag racing follower and second heir to the throne of Qatar.
The guru is Alan Johnson, an eight-time NHRA championship crew chief who formed his own two-car team this season with the sheikh's support.
For Worsham, it's an unimaginable combination of royalty that has changed his life.
"It's just incredible how this happened for me," Worsham said. "It's hard for me to put it into words because I feel so fortunate."
It took only seven races for Worsham to earn a victory in his Al-Anabi Racing Toyota, winning the O'Reilly Midwest Nationals last weekend at Madison, Ill.
Johnson's new operation already posted its first Top Fuel win, with Larry Dixon taking the trophy at the Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla., on March 15.
But winning in Top Fuel was expected for Johnson's new deal after he led Tony Schumacher to the past five NHRA Top Fuel titles.
Winning in Funny Car was more of an unknown. Johnson's tuning skills are legendary in Top Fuel, but his only victory in Funny Car came nine years ago with Bruce Sarver as the driver.
"We never really had the right team or the right budget [in Funny Car] before,'' Johnson said. "So without a doubt, this is a big deal to me. And I have no doubts whatsoever that I picked the right guy as the driver."
Worsham, 39, had raced his entire career for his family-owned team run by his father, Chuck Worsham. Del was the NHRA Rookie of the Year in 1991 at age 21, the youngest driver ever to win an NHRA event.
But he learned last summer that longtime sponsor CSK Auto Inc. was out at the end of the season.
"I was still a little shell-shocked over what was happening," Worsham said. "Our family team was coming to an end. I was trying to think of options about what I was going to do next."
Johnson already knew he was leaving Don Schumacher Racing to form his own team, but Worsham wasn't on his short list of driver candidates.
"I didn't know what was happening with Del's team," Johnson said. "When Del told me, it was pretty much a no-brainer for me to hire him."
That no-brainer wasn't so obvious to others. Worsham's career was on the downslide. He failed to make the Countdown the first two years of the playoff format and hadn't finished higher than eighth in the standings in the previous four seasons.
"When Del first started racing, within a couple of years he was arguably the best driver in Funny Car," Johnson said. "But they didn't have the funding do make the most of it.
"Later in his career the funding came, but it also added more responsibility for him, and I think his driving suffered."
Worsham agrees with that assessment.
"When it was my family's team, I worried about everything," Worsham said. "It got progressively worse, and I think it hindered my driving abilities the last few years."
Worsham feels like a new man now and it shows. He ranks second in the standings behind Ron Capps.
"I feel like I'm driving better now than I ever have," Worsham said. "When I'm in the car, I'm not worrying about anything except getting that hot rod down the track. There's still pressure, but it's all in the car now."
Worsham's success doesn't surprise Johnson, who believed that aggressive driving skill was still there if Worsham had the right situation.
"I fully expected Del to air it out this year," Johnson said. "He's back to that young driver he was before. His enthusiasm is off the charts and it's infectious for the team."
Worsham was the runner-up to the Funny Car championship in 2004. He finished top-5 in four other seasons.
But Worsham wondered if his contending days were behind him before this shot came along with one of the big-money teams in the sport.
Sheik Khalid reportedly invested $11 million in the team to convince Johnson to join him.
"I knew I would have the best equipment out here and the car would lack for nothing," Worsham said. "I also knew we would have a huge learning curve. None of us had ever raced together."
Aaron Brooks, 34, was hired by Johnson to tune Worsham's car. It's Brooks' first full season as a crew chief, but it helps having Johnson as an adviser.
"My job to keep Aaron heading in the right direction," Johnson said. "He's even more of a perfectionist than I am, and that's good. The things that win a championship are the smallest details that sometimes get overlooked." Little things make a difference, like being in the right place at the right time.
Worsham was there when a sheikh and a racing guru gave him the opportunity of a lifetime, just when he thought a chance at a championship had passed him by.
"There are no guarantees in this business," Worsham said. "Earlier in my career, I thought we were going to do it, but in recent years, we weren't on a path to get there.
"Now I look at this team, coming off a win, and you can see it. We all are saying, 'You know what? Maybe we can make a run at this thing.' "
Terry Blount covers motorsports for ESPN.com. His book, "The Blount Report: NASCAR's Most Overrated and Underrated Drivers, Cars, Teams, and Tracks," was published by Triumph Books and is available in bookstores. Click here to order a copy. Blount can be reached at terry@blountspeak.com.
