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Three races into this 2007 season (which is now six races old,) Del Worsham had already stopped thinking about the POWERade points chase. He seemed buried in 20th place, barely clinging to a place on the sheet, and he had bigger things to worry about than moving up to 19th or 18th. Now, just three races later, a suddenly solid and resurgent Worsham is willing to take a peek at the points list, to do the same mental mathematics every driver knows so well. "If we go X amount of rounds, and they go Y, we'll move up to Z."
After another solid outing made his early season woes seem even more like ancient history, Worsham could now bravely open at least one eye to quickly look at the rankings, where he found himself sitting in 9th place. Apparently, the earlier reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated.
"It's been getting better, and the results have shown that," Worsham said. "We're not even close to being all the way there yet, but we're so much better off than we were for the first three races, and most of last year, it's pretty cool to have come this far. At Gainesville, we found a couple of things that were not only costing us performance, but were also costing us a lot of motors. We've got that pretty much straightened out now, so we're just trying to put some good laps on the board, to keep building on this. Put it this way, I no longer think we'd have to be the luckiest team in the world to win a race now. We're not ready to dominate, but we're completely ready to compete. I couldn't have said that as recently as Gainesville."
This Atlanta weekend was marked by more than a few notable happenings. For one thing, the annual Georgia rain only visited on Thursday, leaving all three days of professional racing to be contested in nearly perfect conditions. Secondly, after some naysayers had questioned the scheduling of this event on the same weekend as the NASCAR race in Talladega, the southern drag racing fans absolutely packed the large Atlanta Dragway grandstands every day, coming early and staying late, to enjoy their favorite form of motorsport. And finally, the rotation of the albatross known as the dreaded DNQ continued, as big hitters Tommy Johnson, Cruz Pedregon, Jerry Toliver, and Bob Gilbertson failed to make the field on this weekend (stay tuned for more on this subject, as the DNQ mantle will surely continue to make the rounds throughout the Funny Car class.)
On top of all of those things, what we had here was your standard "Friday night or bust" qualifying program. With sessions 1, 3, and 4 all run in the heat, often under a brilliant sun, it was nearly impossible for anyone to run a competitive number in any session other than No. 2, which was run under the lights on Friday night. To illustrate, Worsham made the best pass in session 1, putting an eye-opening 4.850 on the board while the rest of the class struggled to break into the 4.90s. By the time he ran on Friday night, as part of the final pair, Worsham was not only no longer No. 1, he was actually 16th and in danger of being bumped by John Force, who was 17th at the time and running alongside him.
Both Force and Worsham put solid laps on the board, with the visible header flames thrilling the big crowd, but Worsham's 4.783 would only move him up as high as the No. 10 spot. When both Saturday sessions came and went, with none of the four eventual non-qualifiers able to come up with a sub-4.80 run (the bump here ended up being Tim Wilkerson's 4.801,) the field was set with only one position change taking place, as Gary Densham was able to move from 16th to 14th on his final pass. For the second race in a row, Worsham would be running out of the No. 10 position.
"We were a little disappointed to not make a full lap on the final run, because we wanted a better read on what the daylight runs were going to be like, but we had an ignition glitch on that run and the car was only running on one magneto," Worsham said. "When it does that, it runs like it's got an anchor attached to it and it won't get out of its own way, so we had to go into Sunday just estimating what we could do."
Worsham's first-round opponent would be the legendary Kenny Bernstein, who had qualified 7th on the strength of a big 4.763 on Friday night. Worsham is widely known as a driver who likes to be part of the first pair, so there was no disappointment in the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen camp when the higher-qualified Bernstein team selected that pairing.
Leading off the Funny Car parade, Worsham and Bernstein waited out a lengthy Top Fuel clean-up, then strapped themselves in to see which one would leave here in the POWERade Top 10. Worsham had entered this race 10th in points, but Bernstein entered the first round exactly one point behind him.
Bernstein got a tiny edge at the lights, but this one was over in a hurry as his Monster Energy Drink car smoked the tires almost instantaneously, while Worsham's CSK Impala tore down the track with all eight cylinders lit, glued to the surface. The 4.869 on the scoreboard was not the quickest lap of the session, but the flashing "win light" above it was all that mattered.
"That was actually a pretty big round, for this being the sixth race of the year," Worsham said. "We only have 17 races to settle the whole top 8 thing, to make the playoff sytem, so we really didn't want to let our upward curve turn over on us here. We may have come in here 10th, but we were only a round out of 16th at the same time. It meant a lot to us to win that round, to put some distance between us and a lot of good cars. It was big."
In round two, both Worsham and his teammate Jeff Arend (who defeated Gary Densham in round one to put both CSK Impalas into the quarterfinal) could be excused for, at least, thinking of what might lie ahead. With the CSK teammates on the same side of the ladder, they knew they had a chance to meet up in the semi-final, and such a pairing would guarantee one CSK team a final round appearance. The only hurdle in their way was a pair of truly dominant cars, as Worsham had Robert Hight in the second round, while Arend had Ron Capps.
Worsham sat in his car, waiting to go as part of the final pair in round two, only to hear the news that not only had Arend lost in in the left lane, but Gary Scelzi and Tony Pedregon had also been defeated on the left side, and all three had smoked the tires in nearly the same spot. The CSK team, led by Chuck Worsham and the driver himself, "twiddled the knobs" a bit in a last-ditch effort to avoid tire smoke, and then took on Hight for a shot at the semi's.
The good news was that Worsham did go nearly all the way, getting through the area where tire smoke had claimed the other, and only shutting off near the 1,000-foot mark. The bad news was the fact Hight had no problems at all in the right lane, tearing away for a back-breaking 4.877 and the win.
"We did what we could to make sure we didn't smoke the tires like the other three guys did, but to do that we also had to slow the car down," Worsham said. "To win out of that lane, in round two, you needed a safe lap and you needed some help from the other guy. Robert and his gang don't provide help like that very often, so we came up short.
"Despite that, I'm smiling. We're making progress, we're getting better, and we're in 9th place now. We still have 11 races to go before the top eight cars make the Countdown, and we've gone from being over the horizon and left for dead to being right in it. No complaints here."
Sounds like a guy who is, at least, allowing himself to think about those POWERade points again. And rightfully so.
SOLID QUARTER-FINAL FINISH MOVES WORSHAM UP ANOTHER NOTCH
Three races into this 2007 season (which is now six races old,) Del Worsham had already stopped thinking about the POWERade points chase. He seemed buried in 20th place, barely clinging to a place on the sheet, and he had bigger things to worry about than moving up to 19th or 18th. Now, just three races later, a suddenly solid and resurgent Worsham is willing to take a peek at the points list, to do the same mental mathematics every driver knows so well. "If we go X amount of rounds, and they go Y, we'll move up to Z."
After another solid outing made his early season woes seem even more like ancient history, Worsham could now bravely open at least one eye to quickly look at the rankings, where he found himself sitting in 9th place. Apparently, the earlier reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated.
"It's been getting better, and the results have shown that," Worsham said. "We're not even close to being all the way there yet, but we're so much better off than we were for the first three races, and most of last year, it's pretty cool to have come this far. At Gainesville, we found a couple of things that were not only costing us performance, but were also costing us a lot of motors. We've got that pretty much straightened out now, so we're just trying to put some good laps on the board, to keep building on this. Put it this way, I no longer think we'd have to be the luckiest team in the world to win a race now. We're not ready to dominate, but we're completely ready to compete. I couldn't have said that as recently as Gainesville."
This Atlanta weekend was marked by more than a few notable happenings. For one thing, the annual Georgia rain only visited on Thursday, leaving all three days of professional racing to be contested in nearly perfect conditions. Secondly, after some naysayers had questioned the scheduling of this event on the same weekend as the NASCAR race in Talladega, the southern drag racing fans absolutely packed the large Atlanta Dragway grandstands every day, coming early and staying late, to enjoy their favorite form of motorsport. And finally, the rotation of the albatross known as the dreaded DNQ continued, as big hitters Tommy Johnson, Cruz Pedregon, Jerry Toliver, and Bob Gilbertson failed to make the field on this weekend (stay tuned for more on this subject, as the DNQ mantle will surely continue to make the rounds throughout the Funny Car class.)
On top of all of those things, what we had here was your standard "Friday night or bust" qualifying program. With sessions 1, 3, and 4 all run in the heat, often under a brilliant sun, it was nearly impossible for anyone to run a competitive number in any session other than No. 2, which was run under the lights on Friday night. To illustrate, Worsham made the best pass in session 1, putting an eye-opening 4.850 on the board while the rest of the class struggled to break into the 4.90s. By the time he ran on Friday night, as part of the final pair, Worsham was not only no longer No. 1, he was actually 16th and in danger of being bumped by John Force, who was 17th at the time and running alongside him.
Both Force and Worsham put solid laps on the board, with the visible header flames thrilling the big crowd, but Worsham's 4.783 would only move him up as high as the No. 10 spot. When both Saturday sessions came and went, with none of the four eventual non-qualifiers able to come up with a sub-4.80 run (the bump here ended up being Tim Wilkerson's 4.801,) the field was set with only one position change taking place, as Gary Densham was able to move from 16th to 14th on his final pass. For the second race in a row, Worsham would be running out of the No. 10 position.
"We were a little disappointed to not make a full lap on the final run, because we wanted a better read on what the daylight runs were going to be like, but we had an ignition glitch on that run and the car was only running on one magneto," Worsham said. "When it does that, it runs like it's got an anchor attached to it and it won't get out of its own way, so we had to go into Sunday just estimating what we could do."
Worsham's first-round opponent would be the legendary Kenny Bernstein, who had qualified 7th on the strength of a big 4.763 on Friday night. Worsham is widely known as a driver who likes to be part of the first pair, so there was no disappointment in the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen camp when the higher-qualified Bernstein team selected that pairing.
Leading off the Funny Car parade, Worsham and Bernstein waited out a lengthy Top Fuel clean-up, then strapped themselves in to see which one would leave here in the POWERade Top 10. Worsham had entered this race 10th in points, but Bernstein entered the first round exactly one point behind him.
Bernstein got a tiny edge at the lights, but this one was over in a hurry as his Monster Energy Drink car smoked the tires almost instantaneously, while Worsham's CSK Impala tore down the track with all eight cylinders lit, glued to the surface. The 4.869 on the scoreboard was not the quickest lap of the session, but the flashing "win light" above it was all that mattered.
"That was actually a pretty big round, for this being the sixth race of the year," Worsham said. "We only have 17 races to settle the whole top 8 thing, to make the playoff sytem, so we really didn't want to let our upward curve turn over on us here. We may have come in here 10th, but we were only a round out of 16th at the same time. It meant a lot to us to win that round, to put some distance between us and a lot of good cars. It was big."
In round two, both Worsham and his teammate Jeff Arend (who defeated Gary Densham in round one to put both CSK Impalas into the quarterfinal) could be excused for, at least, thinking of what might lie ahead. With the CSK teammates on the same side of the ladder, they knew they had a chance to meet up in the semi-final, and such a pairing would guarantee one CSK team a final round appearance. The only hurdle in their way was a pair of truly dominant cars, as Worsham had Robert Hight in the second round, while Arend had Ron Capps.
Worsham sat in his car, waiting to go as part of the final pair in round two, only to hear the news that not only had Arend lost in in the left lane, but Gary Scelzi and Tony Pedregon had also been defeated on the left side, and all three had smoked the tires in nearly the same spot. The CSK team, led by Chuck Worsham and the driver himself, "twiddled the knobs" a bit in a last-ditch effort to avoid tire smoke, and then took on Hight for a shot at the semi's.
The good news was that Worsham did go nearly all the way, getting through the area where tire smoke had claimed the other, and only shutting off near the 1,000-foot mark. The bad news was the fact Hight had no problems at all in the right lane, tearing away for a back-breaking 4.877 and the win.
"We did what we could to make sure we didn't smoke the tires like the other three guys did, but to do that we also had to slow the car down," Worsham said. "To win out of that lane, in round two, you needed a safe lap and you needed some help from the other guy. Robert and his gang don't provide help like that very often, so we came up short.
"Despite that, I'm smiling. We're making progress, we're getting better, and we're in 9th place now. We still have 11 races to go before the top eight cars make the Countdown, and we've gone from being over the horizon and left for dead to being right in it. No complaints here."
Sounds like a guy who is, at least, allowing himself to think about those POWERade points again. And rightfully so.
