Del Worsham is a racer. It's what he does, it's what he loves,
and it defines him. So, faced with a string of 12 NHRA POWERade Drag
Racing Series events in 18 weeks, what did Worsham choose to do on the
first of only six off-weekends between now and Labor Day? He chose to
pull his popular Blue Max Nostalgia Funny Car out of the shop to take
it racing, of course.
Worsham has entered his Blue Max in the "Funny Car Fever II"
event, set for this Saturday (May 10) at Southwestern International
Raceway in Tucson, Ariz., where he will compete with other dedicated
nostalgia competitors in search of low E.T.'s, bragging rights,
trophies, and purse money. Though strictly a Worsham side-project, the
carefully restored version of Raymond Beadle's 1977 Mustang II Blue Max
has impressed crowds and racers alike, while either making exhibition
runs at NHRA National Events or competing at a select few sanctioned
nostalgia events and match races. Worsham's first full lap in the
car, an exhibition pass at the '05 NHRA Dallas race with Beadle in
attendance, resulted in a 5.97-second time slip, making his Blue Max
the first Nostalgia Funny Car to dip into the 5-second range.
"We
just love racing the car, and when I heard about this event in Tucson I
knew we wanted to go have some fun, if the weather didn't mess up our
NHRA schedule," Worsham said. "We've had some iffy weather at the last
two NHRA races, in Atlanta and St. Louis, so I was keeping my fingers
crossed and I couldn't commit to this deal until I knew for sure we
could go. I don't know if the fingers being crossed helped or not, but
we dodged the rain drops enough at both races to get them in on time,
and now we have the chance to go nostalgia racing this weekend.
Four long weekends stretch between the second and third IHRA National Events.
