Yesterday was a big news day for NHRA drag racing and Del Worsham lead the headlines with the announcement that he would be leaving Kalitta Motorsports to return to racing with his family team for the 2017 season. While there has been no schedule announced or a primary sponsor announced, we cannot imagine that Del will be sitting on the sidelines for most of the year as he’s about as hardcore as it gets both on the competition and mechanical side of the sport. Worsham has developed technology that is being adopted by many of the teams in the form of the ingenious “all in one valve” which is, as the name suggests a tuning solution for managing fuel in a nitro motor that removes some complexities from the system and makes for a cleaner approach all the way around.

Worsham captured the nitro funny car title in the DHL funny car during the 2015 season in dramatic fashion, his team delivering an emotional championship in the car that Scott Kalitta once piloted.

As one of the longest competing drivers in the sport these days, Worsham has garnered titles both in top fuel and in nitro funny car, has amassed dozens of race wins in a career that bean in 1990 and shows no signs of stopping. We are unaware of the exact motivation for this move other than the fact that Del wants to get back to racing with his pop while he still has the chance. Chuck Worsham is still a staple at the races and has been running his own car with a variety of drivers over the last couple of seasons.

An announcement on who will follow up in Del’s seat behind the wheel of the DHL car is expected early next week. Speculation is running rampant on who that could possibly be at this point. Your guess is as good as ours.

Here’s the full story over at NHRA.com 

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The other big announcement that came yesterday was the reveal of where the 12th J&A Service Company pro mod series race would be held during the 2017 season and while the initial speculation had that race being held on the west coast, the real answer was Topeka, Kansas.

For 2017 the pro mod series schedule has expanded to 12 races and the two additional events are the 4-Wide Nationals in Charlotte and the Kansas Nationals in Topeka. These are two good races for the pro mod contingent to be at for a couple of different reasons. Firstly, the 4-Wide race is a circus unlike any other on the tour and the unpredictable nature of these cars means that they will be putting on one hell of a show for the assembled fans. Topeka is great because the place is faster than hell and it’ll likely be the spot where the existing national records are destroyed.

While the addition of two more races for pro mod competitors may cost some additional resources we think it was important for the series to make this move. They will now be seen at exactly half of the NHRA Mello Yello series national events next season and that’s a big deal. Geographically they are heading to good door slammer markets and we cannot tell you how many times over the last few years at Topeka we were wondering to ourselves why the pro mods weren’t there. Wonder no more, sparky!

Click here to read the full story over on NHRA.com