<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/D_Worsham07.jpg" alt="D_Worsham07"align="left"borders="0" />
Del Worsham came into this sunny Saturday knowing full well the immense challenge ahead of him. With every upward tick of the track temperature, it became more and more improbable for anyone to get around Gary Scelzi's 4.891 bump spot. Having demolished a motor on Friday night, Worsham was confident in his new chassis, sure of his team's ability to put it all together, and anxious to get his first lap from A to B, knowing the later session (which would be contested around 4:30) was apt to feature even hotter temps.
Powering off the line in session one, Worsham's CSK Impala SS was on a monster lap, running right down the middle of the track with all eight cylinders lit. Then, about 250-feet before the finish line, with absolutely no warning or indication of what was to come, a malfunction of some sort lifted the supercharger off Worsham's car, which then cracked the carbon fiber hood. At 300 mph, that crack appears to have allowed air to invade, and within a split second the beautiful red Chevy was reduced to mere confetti, as pieces flew in all directions. When Worsham finally got his car to a stop, he knew three things. 1) He had just bumped Gary Scelzi out of the field, 2) He was now sitting in the 16th spot himself, with a 4.873, and 3) Only the nose of his car's body was still attached to the chassis.
After such a pair of cataclysmic explosions, the team immediately elected to spend the rest of the day inspecting and dissecting their car, and that decision meant they could only wait to see if Scott Kalitta, Jerry Toliver, or Scelzi would bump them back out, adding salt to an already angry wound. In the end, Worsham dodged all three bullets, and will enter the race from the No. 16 spot.
"Last night we just had your classic deal where it threw all the rods out, but today it was just hauling down there, running great, and there was just zero indication that anything bad was going to happen," Worsham said. "Next thing I knew, there was a big explosion, daylight was all I saw, and then I pulled the fire bottles and with all that wind hitting me it forced all the fire retardant right onto my visor, so I couldn't see anything either.
"There was never a debate about running the last session. We need to get our car right more than we needed to be up there trying to be heroes. If one of those guys could knock us out, well then so be it. I hate to sound like that, but there are more important things for us right now, and the top thing on the list is to fix the car and make sure we don't do that again. You know what's really bizarre, though, is the fact the motor came back from this run looking brand new. The blower was hanging off of it, but the pistons looked like we just put them in. It's really strange, but the way things have gone for us over the last year, strange is the new normal."
Worsham will face Robert Hight in round one.
WORSHAM BUMPS IN, BLOWS UP, HANGS ON
Del Worsham came into this sunny Saturday knowing full well the immense challenge ahead of him. With every upward tick of the track temperature, it became more and more improbable for anyone to get around Gary Scelzi's 4.891 bump spot. Having demolished a motor on Friday night, Worsham was confident in his new chassis, sure of his team's ability to put it all together, and anxious to get his first lap from A to B, knowing the later session (which would be contested around 4:30) was apt to feature even hotter temps.
Powering off the line in session one, Worsham's CSK Impala SS was on a monster lap, running right down the middle of the track with all eight cylinders lit. Then, about 250-feet before the finish line, with absolutely no warning or indication of what was to come, a malfunction of some sort lifted the supercharger off Worsham's car, which then cracked the carbon fiber hood. At 300 mph, that crack appears to have allowed air to invade, and within a split second the beautiful red Chevy was reduced to mere confetti, as pieces flew in all directions. When Worsham finally got his car to a stop, he knew three things. 1) He had just bumped Gary Scelzi out of the field, 2) He was now sitting in the 16th spot himself, with a 4.873, and 3) Only the nose of his car's body was still attached to the chassis.
After such a pair of cataclysmic explosions, the team immediately elected to spend the rest of the day inspecting and dissecting their car, and that decision meant they could only wait to see if Scott Kalitta, Jerry Toliver, or Scelzi would bump them back out, adding salt to an already angry wound. In the end, Worsham dodged all three bullets, and will enter the race from the No. 16 spot.
"Last night we just had your classic deal where it threw all the rods out, but today it was just hauling down there, running great, and there was just zero indication that anything bad was going to happen," Worsham said. "Next thing I knew, there was a big explosion, daylight was all I saw, and then I pulled the fire bottles and with all that wind hitting me it forced all the fire retardant right onto my visor, so I couldn't see anything either.
"There was never a debate about running the last session. We need to get our car right more than we needed to be up there trying to be heroes. If one of those guys could knock us out, well then so be it. I hate to sound like that, but there are more important things for us right now, and the top thing on the list is to fix the car and make sure we don't do that again. You know what's really bizarre, though, is the fact the motor came back from this run looking brand new. The blower was hanging off of it, but the pistons looked like we just put them in. It's really strange, but the way things have gone for us over the last year, strange is the new normal."
Worsham will face Robert Hight in round one.
