RED OR BLACK, WORSHAM READY FOR A WINNING HAND IN LAS VEGAS
<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/d_worsham.jpg" alt="d_worsham" align="right"borders="0"/>
LAS VEGAS (October 27, 2008) -- Whether he's driving his standard Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Impala, which is bright red like the queen of hearts, or his new-look monochrome Chevy, which more resembles the ace of spades, Del Worsham will enter this weekend's AC Delco Las Vegas Nationals with a simple goal: No matter the method, get some round wins.
Over the course of the second half of the 2008 season, the popular CSK driver has continually been frustrated by close early-round losses, often against some of the best cars in the world, despite the fact he has qualified consistently well and has usually runs strong opening laps. It's akin to a card player drawing 19 or 20 on a dozen straight hands, only to be beaten by a 21 each time. This weekend, Worsham doesn't really care if the laps are beautiful or hideous, as long as they come with a win light, because in the end, winning with a 15 is a lot better than losing with a 20.
"I lost track a long time ago, trying to keep a mental list of all the close ones we've been in, but the last one was the toughest anyway so that's the one I remember," Worsham said, referring to his first-round loss to Jack Beckman in Richmond, despite the fact he ran his quickest lap ever to the 1,000-foot finish line. "We weren't really having a stellar weekend, and were battling some handling issues with the car that caused me to plow over a timing block, but we came out on Sunday and did exactly what we wanted to do, and you can't be upset about that. We ran our quickest lap ever to the new finish line (4.050) and it went right down the middle.
"Unfortunately, we had Jack in the other lane and he beat us. He didn't beat us by much but he beat us, and those all get lumped into the same column on the stat sheet. It's been like that all year, and in the second half it's been so common you start to think about whatever it is you can do to change your luck. You qualify well, and get a championship car in the first round anyway. You run a great lap, and the other guy still gets there first. It is frustrating, but we have Las Vegas this weekend and that's a town built on luck, so maybe it's our turn to put some good laps together and win a few by inches, whether we're racing a world-beater or not."
What can rightfully be perceived as ill fortune, over the course of a season, can also be traced to the overall hyper-competitiveness of the Funny Car class. In 2008, no one gets an easy draw in the opening round, but some are clearly tougher than others. To tie it to numbers, Worsham has been qualifying solidly, averaging a No. 6 spot since the Western Swing began in Denver, and yet he has faced Countdown drivers in the opening round at five of the nine races in which he has competed. Overall, he's faced a playoff contender at all but two of the races since Denver, having also been defeated by Cruz Pedregon and Beckman in the second round, at Reading and Charlotte respectively.
Over the course of the entire season, Worsham has amazingly faced only three drivers who are not in the Countdown (Gary Scelzi, Jerry Toliver, and Bob Tasca) and his 5-2 record against that group shows he can pick up the wins, but his record against those in the elite playoff field is 6-14. Of the 10 drivers in the Countdown, the only ones Worsham has not faced this year are Tony Pedregon and Mike Neff.
"That's kind of interesting, because I hadn't been keeping track of it, but when you look at that you can see why it seems like we're facing a championship-caliber team almost every time we line up," Worsham said. "Especially in the second half of the year, we've been pretty snake-bit with the first round match-ups, no matter where we qualify. A big part of that is just how great the class is, because everyone who qualifies is really tough, but the new qualifying system and the 1,000-foot deal add to it as well.
"I like the new qualifying system, and it has really added a lot of excitement to Saturday qualifying, which was often a complete waste of time the old way, when it was really hot out. Now, doing it this way, you're almost always going to end up with a great car or two down near the bottom, because they messed up on Friday and have to get in in the heat. We saw that all along, but then the 1,000-foot finish line compressed the spread from top to bottom even more, so now there are great cars, absolutely unbelievable cars, sprinkled throughout the field at every race. Once we started racing to the 1,000-foot mark, we found out that we were all pretty equal to that point. It was that last 320 that was spreading us out. That became pretty obvious to me on the Western Swing, where we qualified great at all three races but got killer match-ups each time."
For the record, Worsham qualified 9th in Denver, 2nd in Seattle, and 6th in Sonoma, and his first-round match-ups at those three races were Robert Hight, Ron Capps, and Hight again. Worsham went 0-3.
Now, with only two races left on the 2008 schedule, and therefore only two races left in his tenure as the driver of the CSK Chevy, Worsham will strictly concentrate on what he can control, and again try to block out what he can't.
"You can't stack the deck, and you can't sandbag, I can tell you that, so you just have to come out and race," he said. "We'll hit the track in Las Vegas with the sole intention of getting the CSK car, whether it's the black one or the red one, as high as possible in the field. Whoever we draw, we'll just have to outrun. We obviously can't count on luck being on our side, so we'll just have to be the ones drawing the ace when we have a jack showing."
Blackjack!
<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/d_worsham.jpg" alt="d_worsham" align="right"borders="0"/>
LAS VEGAS (October 27, 2008) -- Whether he's driving his standard Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Impala, which is bright red like the queen of hearts, or his new-look monochrome Chevy, which more resembles the ace of spades, Del Worsham will enter this weekend's AC Delco Las Vegas Nationals with a simple goal: No matter the method, get some round wins.
Over the course of the second half of the 2008 season, the popular CSK driver has continually been frustrated by close early-round losses, often against some of the best cars in the world, despite the fact he has qualified consistently well and has usually runs strong opening laps. It's akin to a card player drawing 19 or 20 on a dozen straight hands, only to be beaten by a 21 each time. This weekend, Worsham doesn't really care if the laps are beautiful or hideous, as long as they come with a win light, because in the end, winning with a 15 is a lot better than losing with a 20.
"I lost track a long time ago, trying to keep a mental list of all the close ones we've been in, but the last one was the toughest anyway so that's the one I remember," Worsham said, referring to his first-round loss to Jack Beckman in Richmond, despite the fact he ran his quickest lap ever to the 1,000-foot finish line. "We weren't really having a stellar weekend, and were battling some handling issues with the car that caused me to plow over a timing block, but we came out on Sunday and did exactly what we wanted to do, and you can't be upset about that. We ran our quickest lap ever to the new finish line (4.050) and it went right down the middle.
"Unfortunately, we had Jack in the other lane and he beat us. He didn't beat us by much but he beat us, and those all get lumped into the same column on the stat sheet. It's been like that all year, and in the second half it's been so common you start to think about whatever it is you can do to change your luck. You qualify well, and get a championship car in the first round anyway. You run a great lap, and the other guy still gets there first. It is frustrating, but we have Las Vegas this weekend and that's a town built on luck, so maybe it's our turn to put some good laps together and win a few by inches, whether we're racing a world-beater or not."
What can rightfully be perceived as ill fortune, over the course of a season, can also be traced to the overall hyper-competitiveness of the Funny Car class. In 2008, no one gets an easy draw in the opening round, but some are clearly tougher than others. To tie it to numbers, Worsham has been qualifying solidly, averaging a No. 6 spot since the Western Swing began in Denver, and yet he has faced Countdown drivers in the opening round at five of the nine races in which he has competed. Overall, he's faced a playoff contender at all but two of the races since Denver, having also been defeated by Cruz Pedregon and Beckman in the second round, at Reading and Charlotte respectively.
Over the course of the entire season, Worsham has amazingly faced only three drivers who are not in the Countdown (Gary Scelzi, Jerry Toliver, and Bob Tasca) and his 5-2 record against that group shows he can pick up the wins, but his record against those in the elite playoff field is 6-14. Of the 10 drivers in the Countdown, the only ones Worsham has not faced this year are Tony Pedregon and Mike Neff.
"That's kind of interesting, because I hadn't been keeping track of it, but when you look at that you can see why it seems like we're facing a championship-caliber team almost every time we line up," Worsham said. "Especially in the second half of the year, we've been pretty snake-bit with the first round match-ups, no matter where we qualify. A big part of that is just how great the class is, because everyone who qualifies is really tough, but the new qualifying system and the 1,000-foot deal add to it as well.
"I like the new qualifying system, and it has really added a lot of excitement to Saturday qualifying, which was often a complete waste of time the old way, when it was really hot out. Now, doing it this way, you're almost always going to end up with a great car or two down near the bottom, because they messed up on Friday and have to get in in the heat. We saw that all along, but then the 1,000-foot finish line compressed the spread from top to bottom even more, so now there are great cars, absolutely unbelievable cars, sprinkled throughout the field at every race. Once we started racing to the 1,000-foot mark, we found out that we were all pretty equal to that point. It was that last 320 that was spreading us out. That became pretty obvious to me on the Western Swing, where we qualified great at all three races but got killer match-ups each time."
For the record, Worsham qualified 9th in Denver, 2nd in Seattle, and 6th in Sonoma, and his first-round match-ups at those three races were Robert Hight, Ron Capps, and Hight again. Worsham went 0-3.
Now, with only two races left on the 2008 schedule, and therefore only two races left in his tenure as the driver of the CSK Chevy, Worsham will strictly concentrate on what he can control, and again try to block out what he can't.
"You can't stack the deck, and you can't sandbag, I can tell you that, so you just have to come out and race," he said. "We'll hit the track in Las Vegas with the sole intention of getting the CSK car, whether it's the black one or the red one, as high as possible in the field. Whoever we draw, we'll just have to outrun. We obviously can't count on luck being on our side, so we'll just have to be the ones drawing the ace when we have a jack showing."
Blackjack!
