SCHUCK'S NATIONALS SUCCESS, IN TECHRON COLORS, WOULD BE SWEET IN SEATTLE
<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/d_worsham.jpg" alt="d_worsham" align="left"borders="0"/>
SEATTLE (July 14, 2008) -- Seattle is a world-renowned cosmopolitan city, rightfully credited with supplying much of the coffee we drink, the grunge rock we once listened to, and the airplanes in which we often fly, but to Del Worsham it's really just all about a chain of auto parts stores. This weekend's Schuck's Nationals is one of two races sponsored CSK Auto on the POWERade tour, and while Worsham has claimed the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Nationals in Phoenix twice, and has won once in Seattle when a different company sponsored the race, he has never been handed the Schuck's Nationals trophy by a CSK representative. There is likely no better time to change that than this weekend.
For one thing, Worsham will be running the team's annual "special edition" car for longtime associate sponsor Chevron, putting a beautiful new Techron Concentrate Plus Impala on the track. In addition, Seattle just happens to fall right in the middle of "crunch time" for those seeking a berth in the Countdown To The Championship, and Worsham is one of many drivers seeking those sweet points in Seattle.
Having entered the Denver race, the first on the three-race Western Swing, only 9 points out of the POWERade Top 10, Worsham left Thunder Mountain slightly further behind. He and Bob Tasca, who had been holding down the 10th spot, now trail Jack Beckman, who leap-frogged over both of them with a runner-up finish in Denver to take over 10th. Tasca now sits 11th, only 2 points out, while Worsham slid to 12th, and is now 13 points behind. With each round being worth 20, the difference is miniscule.
"We had a chance to make a move in Denver, but when you qualify 9th you're usually not expecting to face Robert Hight in the first round," Worsham said. "They slapped low E.T. of the round on us, we smoked the tires, and we missed an open chance to really do some good. In the end, we're fortunate to still be in 12th and we're still less than one round out of 10th, so we can do it on one lap in Seattle.
"With Denver being so disappointing, after a really solid qualifying effort, the next race on the schedule would be one I was looking forward to no matter where it was or who the event sponsor was. The fact it's the Schuck's Nationals in the Techron car, and we'll be doing the press conference at the Space Needle, just ramps it all up in an even better way for me. Absolutely nothing would be greater, right now, than to go some rounds and make our sponsors smile in Seattle. That's our goal, because if they're smiling and we're winning rounds, good things will follow with the points."
Creating those smiles with the Techron car would make the effort all the better, and Worsham has some direct experience with 2008 success while driving a "special edition" Impala in competition. Earlier this year, he won the Houston race with a K&N Filters body on his car.
"This is the first time I've gotten to drive the Techron car, because we always used our second team to do the special bodies in the past, and now we're a one-car team," Worsham said. "We won in Houston, for K&N, and that was a huge thrill for a lot of people, myself very much included. To bring the Techron car out this weekend, and to do well with it, would be awesome."
Worsham and the rest of the nitro fuel classes will be bringing something else new to Pacific Raceways this weekend, in the form of the 1,000-foot race track they tried out for the first time in Denver. Everyone agreed it would be safer, most assumed it would help in terms of parts carnage and oil-downs, but the remarkable impact the shorter track had on the competition, especially in qualifying, surprised almost everyone. Funny Cars are, obviously, very volatile machines, and while some events in the past have featured extremely stout performances and tight race fields, no one could recall anything like Denver, where the difference between the No. 1 spot and the No. 15 spot was a microscopic 86-thousandths of a second.
"Beyond the obvious safety issues and the fact we felt this would make for better racing and less damage, the one thing I was thinking about was that reaction time would start to be a bigger issue in our class, because those teams that use a big top-end charge to drive around you aren't going to have that last 320 feet to do it. None of us were really even talking about the qualifying deal, but the tightness there was a direct reflection of the new distance. I guess, over the years, we've all been pretty tight to 1,000 feet already, and most of the variance came in the last 320, because that's where bad things have always tended to happen.
"In Denver, it was pretty cool to see so many cars making full laps without chewing up pistons, mixing up cylinders, or blowing up completely. Now, we're really going to have to be on top of every detail to qualify solidly, and we're all going to have to be a little lucky too, because a thousandth or two can move you down four or five spots on the ladder. Look at it this way, in Denver we were qualified 9th, but we were exactly 36-thousandths of a second out of the top spot. Do you know how little time 36-thousandths is, especially in a Funny Car? You can grab a lot of that just by staging well. It's going to be really interesting for the rest of this season."
Interesting, indeed. And all the sweeter should the Schuck's Nationals in Seattle be Worsham's place for points.
<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/d_worsham.jpg" alt="d_worsham" align="left"borders="0"/>
SEATTLE (July 14, 2008) -- Seattle is a world-renowned cosmopolitan city, rightfully credited with supplying much of the coffee we drink, the grunge rock we once listened to, and the airplanes in which we often fly, but to Del Worsham it's really just all about a chain of auto parts stores. This weekend's Schuck's Nationals is one of two races sponsored CSK Auto on the POWERade tour, and while Worsham has claimed the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Nationals in Phoenix twice, and has won once in Seattle when a different company sponsored the race, he has never been handed the Schuck's Nationals trophy by a CSK representative. There is likely no better time to change that than this weekend.
For one thing, Worsham will be running the team's annual "special edition" car for longtime associate sponsor Chevron, putting a beautiful new Techron Concentrate Plus Impala on the track. In addition, Seattle just happens to fall right in the middle of "crunch time" for those seeking a berth in the Countdown To The Championship, and Worsham is one of many drivers seeking those sweet points in Seattle.
Having entered the Denver race, the first on the three-race Western Swing, only 9 points out of the POWERade Top 10, Worsham left Thunder Mountain slightly further behind. He and Bob Tasca, who had been holding down the 10th spot, now trail Jack Beckman, who leap-frogged over both of them with a runner-up finish in Denver to take over 10th. Tasca now sits 11th, only 2 points out, while Worsham slid to 12th, and is now 13 points behind. With each round being worth 20, the difference is miniscule.
"We had a chance to make a move in Denver, but when you qualify 9th you're usually not expecting to face Robert Hight in the first round," Worsham said. "They slapped low E.T. of the round on us, we smoked the tires, and we missed an open chance to really do some good. In the end, we're fortunate to still be in 12th and we're still less than one round out of 10th, so we can do it on one lap in Seattle.
"With Denver being so disappointing, after a really solid qualifying effort, the next race on the schedule would be one I was looking forward to no matter where it was or who the event sponsor was. The fact it's the Schuck's Nationals in the Techron car, and we'll be doing the press conference at the Space Needle, just ramps it all up in an even better way for me. Absolutely nothing would be greater, right now, than to go some rounds and make our sponsors smile in Seattle. That's our goal, because if they're smiling and we're winning rounds, good things will follow with the points."
Creating those smiles with the Techron car would make the effort all the better, and Worsham has some direct experience with 2008 success while driving a "special edition" Impala in competition. Earlier this year, he won the Houston race with a K&N Filters body on his car.
"This is the first time I've gotten to drive the Techron car, because we always used our second team to do the special bodies in the past, and now we're a one-car team," Worsham said. "We won in Houston, for K&N, and that was a huge thrill for a lot of people, myself very much included. To bring the Techron car out this weekend, and to do well with it, would be awesome."
Worsham and the rest of the nitro fuel classes will be bringing something else new to Pacific Raceways this weekend, in the form of the 1,000-foot race track they tried out for the first time in Denver. Everyone agreed it would be safer, most assumed it would help in terms of parts carnage and oil-downs, but the remarkable impact the shorter track had on the competition, especially in qualifying, surprised almost everyone. Funny Cars are, obviously, very volatile machines, and while some events in the past have featured extremely stout performances and tight race fields, no one could recall anything like Denver, where the difference between the No. 1 spot and the No. 15 spot was a microscopic 86-thousandths of a second.
"Beyond the obvious safety issues and the fact we felt this would make for better racing and less damage, the one thing I was thinking about was that reaction time would start to be a bigger issue in our class, because those teams that use a big top-end charge to drive around you aren't going to have that last 320 feet to do it. None of us were really even talking about the qualifying deal, but the tightness there was a direct reflection of the new distance. I guess, over the years, we've all been pretty tight to 1,000 feet already, and most of the variance came in the last 320, because that's where bad things have always tended to happen.
"In Denver, it was pretty cool to see so many cars making full laps without chewing up pistons, mixing up cylinders, or blowing up completely. Now, we're really going to have to be on top of every detail to qualify solidly, and we're all going to have to be a little lucky too, because a thousandth or two can move you down four or five spots on the ladder. Look at it this way, in Denver we were qualified 9th, but we were exactly 36-thousandths of a second out of the top spot. Do you know how little time 36-thousandths is, especially in a Funny Car? You can grab a lot of that just by staging well. It's going to be really interesting for the rest of this season."
Interesting, indeed. And all the sweeter should the Schuck's Nationals in Seattle be Worsham's place for points.
