BOB WILBER’S THIRD BOOK “THE LOST MANUSCRIPT” AVAILABLE NOW
Book chronicles the behind-the-scenes action of the 2001 NHRA season with Worsham Racing
INDIANAPOLIS – Why would a relatively unseasoned public relations and sponsor relations pro audaciously decide to also write a year-long 
diary of a full season on the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) tour, as seen from his perch as the Team Manager for Nitro Funny Car driver Del Worsham and his Funny Car organization? Just ask Bob Wilber. He still doesn’t know.
As the 2000 NHRA drag racing season ended Wilber, a relatively new-to-the-scene public relations representative for Del Worsham and Worsham Racing decided that the following season would be a good time to do it, detailing the team’s exploits as they crisscrossed the country. In a serendipitous turn of events a team that had only one previous victory in their first four seasons with sponsor CSK Auto, went on a season-long tear of success with their new two-car team as it came into its own under Worsham’s quickly developing leadership. “The Lost Manuscript” is a true tale, told from the inside, of an entire NHRA season of wins, losses, struggles, compelling characters and behind the scenes drama captured by Wilber in a day-by-day, week-by-week diary. In a conversational and almost fly on the wall style “The Lost Manuscript” offers readers a glimpse inside one of the most exciting NHRA seasons for a developing team. It is available for pre-sale on Amazon.
“I really don’t know why I decided to do this in 2001. My guess is it was subconscious because there weren’t that many reasons to think our lives and careers would change that season,” said Wilber, who has two other books to his credit. “I honestly believe I just wanted to do it to test myself, no matter what the outcomes of the 2001 races were. Good or bad, I wanted to stretch out into long-form and see if I could do it. As it turned out, I had plenty to write about. This was a steppingstone and a turning point for me, but it didn’t rise to the surface for years.”
Why the long 22-year wait to publish it? At the conclusion of the 2001 season Wilber printed one copy and clipped it together with a large black document clip. He shared the lone copy with a handful of friends and associates who all enjoyed the trip down memory lane. As the next season began Wilber shelved the copy and over the years the veteran PR professional moved numerous times across the country and the project eventually disappeared from his memory and from his possession. During a recent preparation for a neighborhood garage sale, Wilber’s wife Barbara found the lone battered copy in a non-descript box.
“Barbara pulled out the one and only copy and when I saw it, I was thrilled, but my biggest fear was that it would be terrible, because I was just in my fifth year with the Worshams as a frontline PR rep,” confessed Wilber. “We both read it, and said to each other, ‘This is really good and it needs to be published.’ It’s a great view into the stuff that happens behind the scenes, off the track, as well as highs and lows of racing. You don’t need to be a racing fan to like it. It’s about relationships and team bonding, and how to improve at what you’re doing. It could be in any profession or walk of life, but it just happened to be in professional drag racing.”
Getting the manuscript into a publishable format was almost as hard as writing the original according to Wilber. The process of taking a printed diary and converting it to an electronic file that could be formatted and edited for publication was a winding path filled with typos, operating system glitches, scanning issues and weeks of frustration. After 22 years Wilber’s passion for the project was tested, but in an impressive display of writer dedication and discipline he was able to produce a readable and enjoyable book.
“That was a mountain that was a lot harder to climb than I ever imagined,” said Wilber. “Bringing it up to date was a meticulous challenge, just from a formatting point of view. As good fortune would have it, it turned out to be a season on the NHRA tour that totally changed our lives. I guess that last part was just good fortune, but I’m not sure. Maybe I just sensed what we were about to do, and that we were maturing into a pretty good team, and possibly I knew in my heart that 2001 was going to be worth writing about. I’m as proud of this book as I am about anything I’ve written, and I feel like the old me and the current me collaborated on it. Our collaboration was just 22 years apart.”
Wilber’s two previous books are his autobiography “Bats, Balls & Burnouts” (released in 2017) and “How Far?” a work of historical fiction in a sports setting (released in 2022.) “The Lost Manuscript” is available for sale on Amazon.
