COUNTDOWN MATH CATCHES UP TO WORSHAM
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Despite winning his first round of competition since Norwalk, at the end of June, and moving past his opponent Bob Tasca into 11th position, Del Worsham finally saw the numbers simply get too big, with too little time left. When Jack Beckman defeated John Force in round two, while Mike Neff defeated Ashley Force and Worsham lost a close one to Cruz Pedregon, the margin between Worsham and a Countdown berth grew to 121 points. With 118 being the most Worsham could win at the next race, the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals, he couldn't catch Beckman or Neff even if "Fast Jack" and "Zippy" failed to show up at the "Big Go."
Worsham's weekend featured its share of highlights, not the least of which was a No. 9 qualifying position, earned Friday evening on the strength of a 4.157-second lap. That qualifying position, combined with Beckman's No. 13 spot and surprising DNQs by both Gary Scelzi and Jerry Toliver, catapulted Worsham from outside the U.S. Smokeless Showdown field all the way up to the No. 7 spot. The Showdown will be contested on Sunday, August 30, during the Indy race.
"We've been running well lately, really since we got to Englishtown back in June, so to cap off this weekend by somehow miraculously getting into the Showdown was really a big deal for this team," Worsham said. "We were so far behind in that thing that 8th place was over the horizon and six time zones away, but we kept scratching and clawing all summer and all of sudden it was right here in front of us this weekend, at the last race before Indy. It wasn't handed to us, we still had to go out there and make it happen, and we did it. That's very cool.
"That got us all pumped up for Sunday, too, and we came out here this morning with a great attitude and a lot of focus. We've been running well all summer, really, but not catching many breaks, so we came to the track this morning with the attitude that we'd have to create our own breaks. And, we came out here to run a bunch of ex-teammates we can't seem to get away from. Until we ran in round two, we hadn't lined up against anyone but Bob Tasca for what seemed like forever."
In actuality, Worsham raced Tasca in round one at Brainerd, and then was paired up with him during all four sessions here in Reading, before facing him one more time in the opening round of eliminations. Six consecutive laps against Chris Cunningham, Tom Leskovan, Mike Cunningham, Danny Gilbert, and Seth Randall, all of whom used to work on the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen blue team, were both coincidence and evidence that these two teams have been running almost exactly the same as of late. Here, they qualified 8th and 9th (with Tasca getting the edge) and entered the first round separated by only 19 POWERade points. For the second weekend in a row, the winner of the Tasca/Worsham match-up would be in 11th place.
Sunday dawned as the second straight stunningly beautiful day, with only a few white puffy clouds in the dry Reading air. With temperatures in the low 80s, the conditions were warm enough to be tricky, but not so hot as to make for bad racing. No one was going to challenge the numbers put on the board late on Friday, but side-by-side racing was not unlikely, and low 4.20s would be the general realm of the day.
Running as the seventh pair, Worsham and Tasca came to the line prepared to duke it out yet again, and at the flash of amber it was Worsham away first with a strong .069 reaction time. From that point forward, as announcer Bob Frey likes to say, "Del Worsham never trailed in that drag race." He led at every interval down the track, and clicked through the finish-line beams in 4.232, defeating Tasca's 4.282. It was a valuable and well-earned win light, but it came after Beckman and Neff had already won their openers, with Beckman taking out points leader Tim Wilkerson and Neff defeating teammate Robert Hight.
"Basically, we had to leave here with a net gain on at least one of those guys, hopefully in the 60 to 80-point range, and I kind of thought it might be Beckman we could chase, because his ladder was just stunningly hard," Worsham said. "When you wake up on Sunday and see that Jack had to race Wilkerson in round one, and then probably (John) Force in round two, you think maybe that part of the deal will go your way. That was an enormous mountain to climb, so give Jack and his team all the credit they deserve, because they took out some huge hitters to eliminate us from the Countdown. They earned every bit of it."
Having gained no points on his prey after one round, Worsham then had to watch Beckman win his second-round race (over Force) before pulling to the line to face No. 1 qualifier Cruz Pedregon, who had run low E.T. of the first round by being the only driver to dip into the teens. The Countdown was slipping away, but Worsham still went to the line determined to take another win.
After a bit of a staging duel, Worsham got a slight edge at the tree, grabbing 11-thousandths, but Pedregon was ahead by the 330-foot mark and went on to power his way to another teen, with a jaw-dropping 4.172. At that point, the forces of mathematics conspired to relegate the remainder of Worsham's 2008 season to the spoiler category.
"There are still seven races left, and the way we're running that's seven more chances to wear the cool hats in the Winner's Circle," Worsham said. "We know we can't win the championship, but we also know we can win races. Plus, we earned a shot at the Showdown money, and that's something to be very proud of. We're a little disappointed that all the wrong numbers added up today, but we're feeling good about how we can finish this season. We're going to be a factor in how it all shakes out, I'm sure of that."
Those pesky numbers don't lie, but now they can be ignored. From here on out, it's simply a race to the finish line and the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen team aims to ruin the plans of as many Countdown participants as possible.
<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/d_worsham.jpg" alt="d_worsham" align="right"borders="0"/>
Despite winning his first round of competition since Norwalk, at the end of June, and moving past his opponent Bob Tasca into 11th position, Del Worsham finally saw the numbers simply get too big, with too little time left. When Jack Beckman defeated John Force in round two, while Mike Neff defeated Ashley Force and Worsham lost a close one to Cruz Pedregon, the margin between Worsham and a Countdown berth grew to 121 points. With 118 being the most Worsham could win at the next race, the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals, he couldn't catch Beckman or Neff even if "Fast Jack" and "Zippy" failed to show up at the "Big Go."
Worsham's weekend featured its share of highlights, not the least of which was a No. 9 qualifying position, earned Friday evening on the strength of a 4.157-second lap. That qualifying position, combined with Beckman's No. 13 spot and surprising DNQs by both Gary Scelzi and Jerry Toliver, catapulted Worsham from outside the U.S. Smokeless Showdown field all the way up to the No. 7 spot. The Showdown will be contested on Sunday, August 30, during the Indy race.
"We've been running well lately, really since we got to Englishtown back in June, so to cap off this weekend by somehow miraculously getting into the Showdown was really a big deal for this team," Worsham said. "We were so far behind in that thing that 8th place was over the horizon and six time zones away, but we kept scratching and clawing all summer and all of sudden it was right here in front of us this weekend, at the last race before Indy. It wasn't handed to us, we still had to go out there and make it happen, and we did it. That's very cool.
"That got us all pumped up for Sunday, too, and we came out here this morning with a great attitude and a lot of focus. We've been running well all summer, really, but not catching many breaks, so we came to the track this morning with the attitude that we'd have to create our own breaks. And, we came out here to run a bunch of ex-teammates we can't seem to get away from. Until we ran in round two, we hadn't lined up against anyone but Bob Tasca for what seemed like forever."
In actuality, Worsham raced Tasca in round one at Brainerd, and then was paired up with him during all four sessions here in Reading, before facing him one more time in the opening round of eliminations. Six consecutive laps against Chris Cunningham, Tom Leskovan, Mike Cunningham, Danny Gilbert, and Seth Randall, all of whom used to work on the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen blue team, were both coincidence and evidence that these two teams have been running almost exactly the same as of late. Here, they qualified 8th and 9th (with Tasca getting the edge) and entered the first round separated by only 19 POWERade points. For the second weekend in a row, the winner of the Tasca/Worsham match-up would be in 11th place.
Sunday dawned as the second straight stunningly beautiful day, with only a few white puffy clouds in the dry Reading air. With temperatures in the low 80s, the conditions were warm enough to be tricky, but not so hot as to make for bad racing. No one was going to challenge the numbers put on the board late on Friday, but side-by-side racing was not unlikely, and low 4.20s would be the general realm of the day.
Running as the seventh pair, Worsham and Tasca came to the line prepared to duke it out yet again, and at the flash of amber it was Worsham away first with a strong .069 reaction time. From that point forward, as announcer Bob Frey likes to say, "Del Worsham never trailed in that drag race." He led at every interval down the track, and clicked through the finish-line beams in 4.232, defeating Tasca's 4.282. It was a valuable and well-earned win light, but it came after Beckman and Neff had already won their openers, with Beckman taking out points leader Tim Wilkerson and Neff defeating teammate Robert Hight.
"Basically, we had to leave here with a net gain on at least one of those guys, hopefully in the 60 to 80-point range, and I kind of thought it might be Beckman we could chase, because his ladder was just stunningly hard," Worsham said. "When you wake up on Sunday and see that Jack had to race Wilkerson in round one, and then probably (John) Force in round two, you think maybe that part of the deal will go your way. That was an enormous mountain to climb, so give Jack and his team all the credit they deserve, because they took out some huge hitters to eliminate us from the Countdown. They earned every bit of it."
Having gained no points on his prey after one round, Worsham then had to watch Beckman win his second-round race (over Force) before pulling to the line to face No. 1 qualifier Cruz Pedregon, who had run low E.T. of the first round by being the only driver to dip into the teens. The Countdown was slipping away, but Worsham still went to the line determined to take another win.
After a bit of a staging duel, Worsham got a slight edge at the tree, grabbing 11-thousandths, but Pedregon was ahead by the 330-foot mark and went on to power his way to another teen, with a jaw-dropping 4.172. At that point, the forces of mathematics conspired to relegate the remainder of Worsham's 2008 season to the spoiler category.
"There are still seven races left, and the way we're running that's seven more chances to wear the cool hats in the Winner's Circle," Worsham said. "We know we can't win the championship, but we also know we can win races. Plus, we earned a shot at the Showdown money, and that's something to be very proud of. We're a little disappointed that all the wrong numbers added up today, but we're feeling good about how we can finish this season. We're going to be a factor in how it all shakes out, I'm sure of that."
Those pesky numbers don't lie, but now they can be ignored. From here on out, it's simply a race to the finish line and the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen team aims to ruin the plans of as many Countdown participants as possible.
