Racetrack Insider - News and Views of the Motorsports Industry from Insiders Drew Patey and Buddy Judy

Del Worsham Takes NHRA Race in Richmond

Del Worsham got a new crew chief in Charlotte last month and this weekend, the Dickie Venables-tuned Al-Anabi Racing Safety-Kleen sponsored Toyota made three passes within two-hundredths of a second, beating a tire-smoking Matt Hagan with a 4.10, blower-banging Memphis champ Jeff Arend with a 4.12, and tractionless Ron Capps with a 4.11 to reach the 38th final of his Pro career and his third this season. Tim Wilkerson reached his 23rd career Funny Car final by moving his Mustang past defending event champ Cruz Pedregon, new points leader Robert Hight, and Mike Neff - each time with the best pass of the round: 4.064, 4.097, and 4.107. Then Worsham won the race over Wilkerson and moved up one spot to eighth place, 136 points out of the lead which is held by Safety-Kleen driver Robert Hight. The top six drivers are separated by just 86 points. In the Top Fuel final, it was Brandon Bernstein's day as he won for the first time in more than two years. Even though he has gone to the finals eight times since his last win at the 2007 Brainerd event, Bernstein was up against Antron Brown, but the race was over at the start as Antron smoked the tires at the hit of the throttle. Bernstein, who entered the event in seventh place, reached the fifth spot in points with the win, the 18th of his Top Fuel career. Bernstein sealed the win with a 3.84, 307.09-mph pass while Brown coasted to a nine-second runner-up pass. Schumacher still leads the points battle by 47 over Dixon, with McClenathan third and Brown fourth, just 68 and 81 points, respectively, behind Schumacher. The Pro Stock final had a lot riding on it, too, as it featured the top two points runners, Mike Edwards and Safety-Kleen's Greg Anderson, each shooting for his second win of the playoffs. Charlotte winner Edwards, whose driving has come under fire this year, all but put the lock on his first career Pro championship with a huge win, and surprisingly did it on a holeshot, 6.526 211.43 to 6.522, 212.03 after gaining a .019 to .027 starting-line advantage. With the win, scored by a narrow .004-second, Edwards leads the points by 128 markers, or six rounds, with only eight rounds of racing left. Although Dallas champ Anderson was 30-7 career against Edwards coming into the final, he was 1-3 this season and Edwards had the better car coming into the money round. Edwards, the No. 1 qualifier at last seven races and 13 of 22 on the season, scored his fifth win of the season and the 20th of his Pro Stock career. The NHRA get two weeks off before heading west for Vegas and then the year end finals at Pomona.