In Del Worsham’s life, he has Mello Yello and just plain mellow.

He said dad Chuck isn’t ornery and impatient. But then again, the racer with both a Top Fuel and Funny Car championship said this season of leaving the high-budget, high-pressure world of drag racing and going back to the father-son arrangement has given him a new perspective, too.

He said Chuck Worsham is “much mellower, much mellower than he was in the early days. But I found out yesterday that there still is a little glimmer of hope that he still has a little snap in him.”

The son said he supposes that maybe he has grown up and wised up.

“I think so. Everybody’s mellower than they were. Everybody is,” Del Worsham said. “We’ve accomplished a lot. There’s things we still want to do, and we still have goals, but I think that we’re just doing what we want and everybody realizes that you know you don’t get this every day, and we got another chance to do it. Just want to make the most out of it.”

He indicated he feels rather happy about this season, all things considered.

“I do, I do. You know, if I had a f-----g crew chief, it would have been a lot better. Nah, I do. Yeah, we did,” he said with a laugh. “Did it go 100 percent the way we wanted? No. We had ups and downs. But all in all, the car’s running well. It’s ending on a high note. It’s running the way we want it to. This is what I was looking for in the beginning, and it just took us a little while to get here. But it’s going well.”

He said he certainly has learned one truth.

“Oh my goodness. I’ll tell you one thing” You never, ever burn bridges that you might have to cross again someday, because I sure called back on a lot of people to help me out. And they all stepped up and did a great job – a lot of friends, a lot of sponsors, and I’m glad I didn’t burn any bridges through the years,” Worsham said.

He can’t help but think that maybe some of the big-team drivers are looking at him and  saying, “Wow, he looks like he’s having a good time.”

“I’m sure, yeah. I know everybody out here, and pretty much the majority of them, if they’ve been around here at all or they know me or my Dad at all, they understand the moves that were made and why they were made. The decisions and the position that we took, I don’t regret any of them.”

So what’s in store for 2018?

“Oh my goodness. Man, 2018 . . . Hopefully a little more success than 2017 as far as like on the track. I think we’re way ahead of where we were. It’s back to just, you know, like everybody said, we’ve just got to get our finances in order. You know, there’s sponsors out there, there’s a nice platform to pull from out here with NHRA Mello Yello. We just got to get our sponsors in order and get all the help we can and make sure that we’re prepared for what truly is a grind,” Worsham said. “I did as much racing in 2017 as I did literally in 1992. I think at one point, I don’t know exactly how many weeks we raced in a row, but it was months in a row. We raced NHRA, we match raced, we licensed, and we tested, and I have a lot of miles in an 18-wheeler again. There’s things that you can never get back, and I’m glad I did it.”