Del Worsham’s birthday came and went six months ago, and it’s a bit early for Christmas. But the hard-luck National Hot Rod Ass’n Funny Car driver needs a gift.
And Bob Tasca won’t celebrate his birthday until Oct. 14, but he wouldn’t mind an early present as he battles Worsham for the 10th and final spot in the Countdown to the Championship lineup.
Worsham entered the Lucas Oil Nationals just two points behind 11th-place Tasca, and his No. 4 qualifying effort in the Checker Schuck’s Kragen Chevy Impala was a major boost. With that, he passed Tasca for 11th. The evil plot twist was that he met Tasca in the opening round.
Neither driver was impressive at the starting line, but Tasca’s .097-second light beat Worsham’s snoozy .114. That gave Tasca the holeshot victory, the first of his career.
Worsham called it “a crushing blow  because it’s on me and we had it right there in our hands to make a strong move for the Countdown.”
Then in the next round, Tasca drew point-leader Tim Wilkerson and lost, leaving him in 12th with just two races before the Countdown starts.
“We still have two more races,” Worsham said, “but I’m the guy in the car and that was the best I had right then. I wasn’t distracted. I did everything like I always do, and that was just the best I had.
“The way this all set up, with us having to race Tasca in the first round, made the drama just about as thick as it can get,” he said. “It was so tense in the pit hardly anyone was talking, but we felt really good about the car and really good about the tune-up. It ran just about flawlessly. We just didn’t get there first.”
Looking to this weekend’s Toyo Tires Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway in Pennsylvania, Worsham said, “We’re going straight to Reading to win that race.”
Tasca was shaking his head at the draw Sunday as well, but said he’s thankful he still is eligible to catch the No. 10 driver Mike Neff, who is battling Tasca for rookie-of-the-year honors.
“We’re still alive for this run to get into the top 10,” Tasca said. “This [79 points] is not an insurmountable points deficit.
“My perspective on this whole sport is pretty simple,” he said. “Chris (crew chief Cunningham) and I talk about what we want the car to run and what we think it’s going to take to win the round. And you can be one of three places. You can either under-power the track, overpower the track, or you can be perfect. And that second run (Sunday), we were closer to perfect than under or over, but then you run somebody like Wilkerson. He’s got his spot in the points locked down and has nothing to lose. With the test ban on, he can go out there and if he smokes the tires, he knew he was too aggressive. And if he makes a perfect run, like he did, he can learn some stuff from that.
“I think how my team performed when our back was against the wall in that first round was tremendous.”
Worsham has some added consolation. After being as many as 200 points out of the U.S. Smokeless Showdown $100,000-to-win bonus race that led him to a lucrative weekend at Indianapolis in 2005, he is tied with Jack Beckman for a still-unqualified-but close ninth place. All he needs is five points to make the eight-driver grid.
“If we go to Reading and out-qualify (Gary) Scelzi and Beckman, we’re in,” Worsham said. “I’ll take it, because we need some good news around here.”