When Alexis DeJoria pulls her Tequila Patrón Toyota Funny Car to the starting line during the 2013 season, she just might have a driver in the next lane who knows more about her than her average National Hot Rod Association competitor.
 
“At least he’s not going to share it with other people,” she said with a laugh.
 
No, Del Worsham won’t.
 
The newest driver in the multi-team Kalitta Motorsports organization, Worsham will drive the DHL-sponsored Camry as part of a wave of changes for the Ypsilanti, Mich.-headquartered team. He was DeJoria’s crew chief for her rookie season, guiding her to a runner-up finish at Bristol in June.
 
She’ll benefit next year from experienced crew chiefs Tommy DeLago and Glen Huszar, who joined Kalitta Motorsports after helping Matt Hagan earn the 2011 championship at Don Schumacher Racing. They’ll be her tuners, as Worsham takes over the DHL driving duties in place of Jeff Arend.
 
Although Arend said the move came as a surprise, he said, “We all left on good terms.”
 
The decision to change drivers was not Worsham’s. “No, not at all,” he said. Rather it was team owner Connie Kalitta’s strategic chess-game move to challenge the Don Schumacher Racing / John Force Racing domination in the sport — and to help Kalitta Motorsports reach its potential.

 
With the announcement this past week that former Al-Anabi Racing General Manager Chad Head will drive about 10 races in 2013 for dad Jim Head’s operation, Toyota’s presence in the NHRA grew stronger. And Worsham, no stranger at all to a Funny Car with his longtime family-car campaign with dad Chuck Worsham, is back on track after claiming the 2011 Top Fuel championship for Al-Anabi / Alan Johnson Racing.

 “I’m not going to say I wasn’t flattered and honored by it,” Worsham said of the invitation to return to the seat of a Funny Car. “I’m definitely honored to drive for Connie Kalitta and the whole organization and Jim O [team Vice-President Jim Oberhofer, who doubles as crew chief for Doug Kalitta’s Mac Tools Dragster]. But this is something they kind of pursued, and it was their idea of trying to bring in Tommy D and everybody in the best possible positions and places they thought to make their team as strong as they could.

“They asked me what I thought about driving, and to be totally honest,”he said, “I wasn’t done driving a Funny Car. I thought again someday I might, but at the end of last season I was just done racing. I needed time off. So I got my time off.”
 
Worsham surprised fans first by leaving his dad’s team and joining the new Al-Anabi / Alan Johnson team as a Funny Car driver 2009. Then in 2011, he surprised by switching back to a dragster for the first time since 1995. After a dominating season that ended in the 2011 Top Fuel title, he abruptly retired from driving, moved to Kalitta Motorsports and became crew chief for DeJoria. So this 42-year-old who’s full of surprises had one more this off-season.

 For many who could imagine him only as a driver, the drag-racing universe is back in its proper orbit. Worsham said he joys both worlds.
 
“My entire adulthood, that’s all I’ve done [drive]. So I can see why people would think that,” he said. “And I hope someday I’ll go back to the crew chief thing again. But for right now, this is the position. And I’m honored and looking forward to it.”

Tommy Delago (left), who won the 2011 Funny Car championship with driver Matt Hagan, will assume the crew chief duties of the Alexis DeJoria-driven Tequila Patron Funny Car in 2013, along with Phil Huszar.

 
He had invested so much into DeJoria’s car and career that he won’t be much farther than an opinion away in 2013.
 
Worsham said he’ll be “helping out wherever I can. I don’t think it’s any one man’s job anymore. It takes multiple people. So whatever I can do to help out, I definitely will.”
 
DeJoria said, “He still wants to be a tuner. That’s where he sees himself. This was just something he was asked to do by the bosses and he made that choice. We were all just planning on keeping everything the same for next season. So it was a surprise to all of us, really. We didn’t know anything about it until we got to Pomona [for the final race if the year]. Mid-qualifying on Saturday, it was like, ‘Oh, OK.’  That’s when they talked about it. I didn’t know until after that.
 
“He’s still going to be working with Tommy and Glen on the tune-ups and with Nicky [Boninfante] and Jon O [Oberhofer],” she said, referring to the crew chiefs for the DHL-sponsored car. “So they’re still going to be crew-chiefing the cars together. It’s going to be awesome. I’m really excited about it,” she said. “I’m just really glad that Del’s still going to be involved. I absolutely love Del. My team loves Del. And working with him has been such an awesome experience. He’s so smart. It’ll be cool,” DeJoria said.
 
She said having a Funny Car teammate will elevate her performance.
 
“I don’t see the DHL car as a threat. I see it more as a teammate, When we’re up against each other on the line, that’s a different story,” DeJoria said. “But I think it’s going to be a tremendous help for myself and for the team, as well.”

Worsham, who last drove in 2011 when he won the NHRA Top Fuel championship at the controls of Alan Johnson's Al-Anabi Racing dragster, will pilot the DHL Toyota Funny Car driven since 2008 by veteran Jeff Arend.

She took a positive approach to having Worsham next to her on the track.
 
“It’s going to be an interesting change,” DeJoria said, anticipating that both cars “are really going to be set up exactly the same. I think he’s going to give me a lot more pointers, and [I’ll] have more feedback with him being a driver. Yeah, unfortunately, I’m going to have to race him at some point, and that’s not going to be fun. Just to have him in my corner as another driver is pretty awesome.

“He’s going to do whatever it takes for the greater good of the team,” she said. “We’re just trying to build some really good, solid, stable information for both of these cars. We’re trying to make them be on the same page and run pretty similar so we can learn from each other.”
 
She said she’s also excited about having DeLago and Huszar on her team.
 
DeJoria was acquainted with DeLago beforehand because “he has had a relationship with the Kalittas. He used to work over there. He’s friends with Nicky [Boninfante]. I’ve known him for awhile, and I’ve seen what he did with Matt Hagan’s car, giving them the runner-up that year then the next year winning the championship.
 
“This season they didn’t do so well, but they learned a bunch, he was telling me,” she said. “And it’s not always going to be rainbows. You’re going to have tough times. That’s just part of life. They did learn a lot this season, and I think with what we learned, just putting their heads together — Del, Tommy, Nicky, Jon O — I think were going to do really well.”

 
Worsham said, “They’re pretty successful people. They’ve built themselves a pretty good set-up over there. With her [DeJoria’s] second season of driving and them coming on board, I suspect her car’s going to run awful good.”
 
Huszar worked with John Medlen at John Force racing before moving to DSR, so he brings a wealth of sound training to Kalitta Motorsorts, too.
 
“He is intense,” DeJoria said. “He’s determined, so it’ll be cool. I’m excited about it. They’re very smart guys, very headstrong. They’ve been there, done that.”
 
DeLago said he and Huszar “are very excited about the opportunity of coming back to Kalitta Motorsports. Working for Connie is the best job in drag racing. He’s a pioneer in the sport and a great guy to work for. He’s always more than willing to try new things, and that’s one of the things I admire most about him.
 
“Our goal for the 2013 season is not to change what was already put into place on the Patrón Funny Car but be an addition and keep improving on what Del and the team have implemented this past year. And we look forward to being a part of a prominent and competitive team for years to come.”
 

For Worsham, the change is seamless. It’s almost like a homecoming.
 
“I’ve worked with Nicky Boninfante as far back as . . . Heck, I worked with him and his dad in 1990. Before I started driving, my dad had his own car, and he and his partner stopped racing after 1989. So I actually took my only job with Nicky and I worked on his dad’s car, the Raybestos Funny Car, when we hired Richard Hartman to drive it,” he said. “That’s when I got the call from my dad to come back racing. They had found a partner and they were going to build our car up again. The family car was going to start racing again.

“So Nicky and I go way back. We go back 25 years. There are a lot of friends here and a lot of us who have worked together before. It should — hopefully this will work out the way we all want it to,” Worsham said.
 
DeJoria and Worsham both expressed empathy for Arend.

“It’s unfortunate that Jeff is not going to be driving the car. For whatever reason, Connie [Kalitta] made a business decision, and this is what he felt was the right thing to do at this moment,” DeJoria said. “I know what they’re trying to accomplish, and that’s probably why they did it. I don’t know. I just kind of sit back and I have to back up whatever decisions they make, because you know what? They want to win. I support whatever they want to do.”
 

Jeff Arend, who had the unenviable task of filling the seat of the late Scott Kalitta after his tragic passing in 2008, landed a new full-time driving job with Jim Dunn Racing this week. According to Arend, the departure from the Kalitta team was on "good terms."

Worsham said he’d echo DeJoria:  “Absolutely, for sure, 100 percent.”
 

“I hope there’s no personal feelings. I hope he never — I’m sure he doesn’t . . . I explained it to him. I never set out intentionally to ever take his job or really even drive. It’s just kind of the way things worked out.,” he said about Arend’s situation. “It was all professional.   . . . There was no malicious intent. I don’t think anyone ever set out to do any harm or do anything bad to Jeff. Unfortunately it’s just the way it all turned out.”
 
He said he talks to Arend just about every day, as always.
 
“We’ve been friends for a long time, and he drove my car for me in 2007 — my blue Checker Schuck’s Kragen car. I referred him to Kalittas after Scott’s tragic accident in 2008,” Worsham said.
 
Connie Kalitta said, “We’re excited to have assembled this group to take our Funny Car program to the next level,” . “Jim [Oberhofer] and I have been talking about what to do to put our best foot forward for some time. And when these opportunities arose, I told him to make it happen. Everyone in our organization is very eager to get back out on the track again in 2013 and win races.”
 
Indeed, he has assembled one of the best groups to give DSR and JFR an exhaustive run for their money. And drag-racing fans are as eager to see what that means on the racetrack as they are eager to see if a mechanical monarchy develops off the track.
 
Word has filtered to the racing and Hollywood media that DeJoria is reportedly engaged to TV personality Jesse James. However, in an effort to steal at least a little privacy, DeJoria has been low-key about the relationship, even saying, if way too late, “I don’t want to name any names.”
 
“I don’t want to comment on any of that,” she said, despite USA Today, International Business Times, the Huffington Post, and a variety of online entertainment gossip web sites have published tweets she allegedly made regarding her relationship with James.
 
“But I am in a serious relationship and very happy. I’ll just leave it at that for now,” she said. “I still want to stay fairly vague.”
 
She had no problems broadcasting her intentions at the dragstrip.
 
“I’m very competitive. I want to win. I’m not out here just for fun,” DeJoria said. “Obviously I love what I do. I’m so passionate about it. But I’m here to win.”
 
The entire Kalitta Motorsports operation has re-tooled so she has a much better chance to do that.