WORSHAM LOOKING FOR JACKPOT IN LAS VEGAS

LAS VEGAS – Last year at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway located 15 miles north of fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada, two-time NHRA world champion Del Worsham raced to a runner-up finish. This year, Worsham is hoping to at least replicate that achievement at the 18th annual DENSO Spark Plugs NHRA Nationals, which is the fourth event of the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series.

At Gainesville, Worsham suffered a tough first round loss to John Force, who went on to win the event. Despite this, Worsham and the rest of his Lucas Oil Toyota Camry Funny Car team is remaining optimistic and focusing on continued improvement race by race throughout the rest of the season.

“I really wasn’t hoping for back-to-back first round losses, but it’s so early in the season and there’s still a lot of opportunity out there, so I wouldn’t say we’re in a position where I feel desperate at this point, but we definitely need to turn it around and start putting down some good runs,” Worsham said.

Worsham will be looking for his first Funny Car win at the spring NHRA Las Vegas national event, after coming in as runner-up to Alexis Dejoria last season. He has two wins in Vegas at the fall national event, one each in Top Fuel and Funny Car.

“I’m looking forward to getting back to the west coast and racing in front of my family and friends and my sponsor, Lucas Oil. We’re coming out of a tough race in Gainesville, so I’m looking to rebound at Las Vegas and try to regain some of that momentum we had built at Phoenix,” Worsham said.

Currently Worsham sits in 11th place in the Mello Yello championship points standings and he is only a point behind Tim Wilkerson. He stayed in Gainesville on Monday to test in hopes of getting his car ready to join the top 10 in Las Vegas.

“Testing went well. Unfortunately, we had a mechanical problem during the race in Gainesville. We found the problem Sunday night and decided on Monday to go ahead and stay in Gainesville and make sure it wasn’t a problem with the car,” Worsham explained. “The car ran great, and picked up where we were in Phoenix and I’m looking forward to Las Vegas.”

Qualifying starts Friday at 2:00 p.m. for Worsham and the rest of his fellow Funny Car competitors.