NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Del Worsham wasn’t sure what was wrong, but when he woke up one December day this winter and, unlike his normal Energizer Bunny self who couldn’t wait to get to the shot, he didn’t want to get up.

After decades of grinding away on the NHRA tour — as a driver, owner, and crew chief, with tremendous success as all three — something had to change.

Worsham had spent the last five seasons as a partner with Alexis DeJoria on the DC Motorsports team, building it from the ground up, but success had been elusive for the duo despite many times having one of the best cars at the track.

“We just weren’t having the success we needed or expected,” he explained. “I probably wasn’t listening to her as much as I should, and I could see that some things just weren’t going to change, so it was time for me to make a change.”

Worsham was prepared to sit out the season but when you’ve been racing Funny Cars your whole life – starting with crew on his father Chuck’s Alcohol Funny Cars in his teen and then as a mechanic for a few years before getting his first shot behind the wheel in 1990 – quitting is hard.

DeJoria landed solidly on her feet with JCM Racing. allowing Worsham the chance to breathe and consider his options without worrying about his longtime compatriot.

“I was planning on not racing for a while but I was out in at Ocotillo Wells with my dad riding my dirt bike, and I told him, ‘Man, I think I want to go to Gainesville [for the NHRA season-opening Gatornationals].’ He's like, ‘Well, go down there then.’ The car was in Indy so I called the guys up. I said, ‘Let’s get it ready,’ even though I didn’t even have a driver.”

Worsham and his wife Connie started combing through the list of available drivers, checking their stats and what they knew about their driving styles, abilities, and attitude.

“We went back three years and looked at it every different way — who was available, who did a good job, who would listen to what I had to say, who wanted to be here — and Bobby Bode’s name kept coming to the top,” he said. “I’ve watched him and I loved the passion I saw in him when he lost that final in Houston a few years ago when it blew up.

“It was like when we hired Phil Burkhart to drive our second CSK car years ago because we saw that every car he had gotten into, he made it better. He went to a final round in Chicago in one of our first races together and might have won it if he didn’t have an oil leak. So that’s what I look for. Who has a good presence in the car, who’s going to shut off when he knows it’s got a hole out or not running right?

“So I called Bobby’s dad and asked if it was OK, because I know they like to run the family car at eight or 10 races every year, and maybe Bobby could drive for me at the races they’re not running. He said Ok, so I talked it over with Connie to make sure she was OK with it and then I decided, ‘Well, hell, if we’re going to Gainesville we might as well go to Bradenton [for the PRO preseason event].”

Bobby Bode still remembers the day he got that unexpected call from Worsham. 

"I was working on our car when I got a call from Del, asking if I wanted to drive it," said Bode. "I said, ‘Absolutely, I would love to.’ There's a ton of different people he could have called. I couldn't believe it. It took me  a week or two just to even process what had just happened."

(Humorously enough, it’s not the first time that Bobby Dode has driven for Worsham. Way back in 2015, he got into one of Worsham’s daughter’s Jr. Dragster at the Western Conference Finals and he drove the car to a semifinal finish.)

Bode went to Worsham’s shop in Fort Wayne, Ind., to get fitted in the car and headed to Florida.

"We went to Bradenton and did pretty good there and then we went to Gainesville and qualified sixth and won the first round over J.R. Todd, and then I thought that was the end of it," said Bode. "Then once the race was over Sunday night, Del came in and said, ‘Hey, we did really good today, do you want to go to Phoenix and Pomona?’

"It's cool just getting to work with Del, because I don't work on as much as my car, but I watch from the side to see what he does, and that really helps me understand," said Bode. "I think that could help our car when we take it out again. It's just cool to learn someone as smart as him."

Racing in Worsham’s car brought a shift in mindset. Confidence soared, and with it came a firm belief in the car's potential.

"It's really cool, because going up there my confidence level is high, but it's a whole different mentality, knowing we really have a good shot," said Bode. "I have full faith that the car’s gonna get down the track in one piece and everything’s gonna be good.”

Bode, who last year graduated from Arizona State University Cum Laude with a B.S. degree in Business Marketing, excelled in the car in Florida, running career-best passes and winning a few rounds, including the opening round at the Gatornationals. He was out on Ron Capps in the second round but the car spun the tires downtrack -- “My fault,” admits Worsham. “I missed two settings.” – but even their best run, a 3.88, was flawed in a number of ways, so Worsham knows he has a car that will run.

The next question is, “For how long?”

The current plan is for Bode to ride in Worsham’s CP-Carrillo Toyota through the Winternationals and the 4-Wide event in Las Vegas, then jump back into the family Funny Car into his dad’s Ar-Bee Plastic bags entry to run the Charlotte 4-Wide Nationals, their hometown Gerber Collision and Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals outside of Chicago, Norwalk, Indy, Brainerd, St. Louis, Las Vegas, and finale in Pomona.

Should the Worsham-Bode combination get hot in the next two races, that’s all subject to change.

"Well, we'll obviously cross that bridge when we get there,” said Bode. “That would be a really cool situation to even be in, and if that opportunity happened, I would love to keep going. I’m in the Top 10 of points for the first time in my life [seventh] so it’s all very exciting. I'm just taking it all in every run. I'm not sure when my last time is going to be so I'm just kind of enjoying and digging it all in for what it is."

Between races, there will be time for Bobby to continue to work the family car, learning small tricks along the way, especially from Worsham’s approach to the finer details of racing mechanics.

"It's just a ton of little stuff like what he does with the clutch,” he said. “He showed us a way that he checks this and that, and we can apply that to our car. We went home and checked ours and while they were;t crazy out of whack, they were not like how Del runs his, so we're learning a lot."

In the meantime, Worsham has been working on some sponsorship deals for a more protracted season that may at some point also include reigning Top Alcohol Dragster champion Julie Nataas, who ran an impressive 3.94 in Worsham’s car in testing at Gainesville Raceway and is expected to complete licensing at Firebird Motorsports Park the Monday after the NHRA Arizona Nationals.

Whatever the future holds for Worsham and his young drivers, it’s going to be well worth watching.