Del Worsham, Jack Beckman and Greg Anderson have all celebrated victory at the 2nd annual VisitMyrtleBeach.com NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway.
The event was the fourth of 22 races scheduled for the 2011 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series season.
The 2011 NHRA Full Throttle Series resumes in two weeks with the 24th annual O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Spring Nationals presented by Pennzoil at Royal Purple Raceway in Houston.
Top Fuel
Worsham nosed out Al-Anabi team mate Larry Dixon by four-thousandths of a second to take the win in Charlotte.
While Worsham gave up four-thousandths to Dixon at the starting line (.064 to .068), he was eight-thousandths quicker (3.813 to 3.821) on the track for a win margin of .0048-second, or about half a foot.
“I told [team manager] Alan [Johnson] it would be only a matter of inches … and it was,” said Worsham, who won for the second time this season and opened up a 77-point lead over Dixon in the Top Fuel points standings.
Australian racer Terry Sainty, who is competing in a number of NHRA events this year with the Sydney-based Rapisarda Racing, just missed out on the 16 car field, with his run of 4.039 seconds at 286.25 miles per hour seeing him 18th on the time sheets.
Funny Car
The Funny Car final was also a close finish: Beckman (4.120, 309.63) crossed the stripe in his Aaron’s Dodge Charger just in front of Bob Tasca III’s Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Shelby Mustang (4.137, 311.05) for his first win this year and 10th of his Funny Car career.
“Del talked about peaking too early. I’m not worried about that … I just want to peak,” said Beckman, who won for the first time in more than a year (Phoenix, 2010).
Pro Stock
In Pro Stock, four-time and defending world champion Anderson, from nearby Mooresville, N.C., chased down runner-up Greg Stanfield (6.559, 211.10) right at the stripe with a 6.556, 211.39 to win by .005-second for the first time this year.
“I love this racetrack, and the best part of it is it’s home for me. Just a great, great day. I’m a very happy person,” said Anderson, who extended his NHRA-best streak of consecutive seasons with at least one win to 11.
Also of note for Anderson, who drives the Summit Racing Pontiac GXP, this was his 66th win, pulling him within one of Tony Schumacher for fifth place on NHRA’s all-time-wins list in the NHRA Full Throttle Series and within three of Kenny Bernstein for fourth place.
