<img src="http://gallery.nitromater.com/files/6/5/d_worsham06.jpg" alt="d_worsham06" align="left"borders="0"/>
NHRA Public Address announcer Bob Frey got it just right, when he described Del Worsham's final-lap 4.806 as "a microcosm of that driver's year." Entering the final qualifying session outside of the quickest field in Funny Car history, Worsham somehow needed to run better than Jim Head's 4.801, and he needed to do it at 4:00 in the afternoon. Considering the red Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Monte Carlo had not yet made a full pass in four attempts, the challenge seemed of Himalayan proportions, if not nearly impossible.
After losing Sunday's first run when his car launched and then made a hard move to the right, which pushed it out of the groove despite Worsham's best effort to bring it back, all of which conspired to create tire spin in the loose marbles near the center line, Worsham and his team discovered a problem with the "pre-load" set-up on the car's front end, and fixed that problem.
"This is a brand new car, and it has washed out pretty hard like that a few times since we put it together, but not every time," Worsham said. "I watched the video of the first run today, and it was obvious we had a problem, so we took the car over to the oval track and put it on the scales. That' where we spotted the problem. We got it fixed, and I at least knew it would go straight this time. I didn't know if we could run 4.800 to get in, but I figured we had a chance. After all the struggles we've had this year, and this weekend, knowing you have a chance was enough to give me a little bit of hope."
With the record bump in place, Worsham was at least spared the normal "last chance" mental juggling act that comes with trying to decide whether to be conservative, just to squeak in the field, or whether to be aggressive, in order to get in higher than 16th. The only tune-up anyone could use for this situation had to be overly aggressive, just to come close to 4.801.
"We have a fast car here, and we've known it since we tested here last week," Worsham said. "It wants to run, and we've had to really try to get on the other side of the tuning curve to tame it down some. The only thing we could do for that last run was trust that we had found the problem, and then go out there with a tune-up that could run 4.79 in the daytime. That's not easy.
"The clouds were dancing around the sun, teasing us with some better conditions, and we actually got a pretty good sized cloud to roll in for us just as we ran. We can't blame the sun, we can't blame the car, and in the end I don't even think we can blame ourselves. We're sorting out this new car, coming to grips with all these new tuning approaches we're taking, and it's all coming together. We're just fighting our way through it right now."
Running as the first car in the final session, immediately after John Force defeated Tommy Johnson in the Skoal Showdown final, Worsham ran a single, with all eyes on him. His car launched well, stayed straight, and tore down the track on a stout run, by far the best of his weekend. At the finish line, the scoreboard read 4.806, leaving him 5-thousandths of a second short.
It wasn't just Worsham's quickest lap of the weekend, it was actually his quickest lap since the Chicago race in early June. It was also one of the best laps of the final session. It simply came at the wrong time.
"We lost the first run on Friday when we broke some stuff, and we never recovered from that," Worsham said. "After that, the car was acting odd and it took us a while to figure out it was a mechanical problem, not a tuning problem. We got it fixed, and made about as good a lap as we could make right there, at that time of day, in those conditions. But just like our whole year has gone, we had to come up a few thousandths short.
"It's unbelievable, and I'm not using that word lightly because I'm sitting here right now wondering how we could go out there and run that well, only to come up 5-thousandths short. I know it happened, but I don't believe it. Despite all that, I can't let myself get too down over this and I have to keep my team from getting too down over it all. We have a fast car, that's just going to get faster as we keep learning. Not being able to defend our Mac Tools U.S. Nationals title is gut wrenching, but we can't change reality. We're going to show what we're made of, and we're going to succeed. In the end, we just have to keep working on this, because we're going to have one of the fastest cars out here."
WORSHAM COMES UP 5-THOUSANDTHS SHORT
NHRA Public Address announcer Bob Frey got it just right, when he described Del Worsham's final-lap 4.806 as "a microcosm of that driver's year." Entering the final qualifying session outside of the quickest field in Funny Car history, Worsham somehow needed to run better than Jim Head's 4.801, and he needed to do it at 4:00 in the afternoon. Considering the red Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Monte Carlo had not yet made a full pass in four attempts, the challenge seemed of Himalayan proportions, if not nearly impossible.
After losing Sunday's first run when his car launched and then made a hard move to the right, which pushed it out of the groove despite Worsham's best effort to bring it back, all of which conspired to create tire spin in the loose marbles near the center line, Worsham and his team discovered a problem with the "pre-load" set-up on the car's front end, and fixed that problem.
"This is a brand new car, and it has washed out pretty hard like that a few times since we put it together, but not every time," Worsham said. "I watched the video of the first run today, and it was obvious we had a problem, so we took the car over to the oval track and put it on the scales. That' where we spotted the problem. We got it fixed, and I at least knew it would go straight this time. I didn't know if we could run 4.800 to get in, but I figured we had a chance. After all the struggles we've had this year, and this weekend, knowing you have a chance was enough to give me a little bit of hope."
With the record bump in place, Worsham was at least spared the normal "last chance" mental juggling act that comes with trying to decide whether to be conservative, just to squeak in the field, or whether to be aggressive, in order to get in higher than 16th. The only tune-up anyone could use for this situation had to be overly aggressive, just to come close to 4.801.
"We have a fast car here, and we've known it since we tested here last week," Worsham said. "It wants to run, and we've had to really try to get on the other side of the tuning curve to tame it down some. The only thing we could do for that last run was trust that we had found the problem, and then go out there with a tune-up that could run 4.79 in the daytime. That's not easy.
"The clouds were dancing around the sun, teasing us with some better conditions, and we actually got a pretty good sized cloud to roll in for us just as we ran. We can't blame the sun, we can't blame the car, and in the end I don't even think we can blame ourselves. We're sorting out this new car, coming to grips with all these new tuning approaches we're taking, and it's all coming together. We're just fighting our way through it right now."
Running as the first car in the final session, immediately after John Force defeated Tommy Johnson in the Skoal Showdown final, Worsham ran a single, with all eyes on him. His car launched well, stayed straight, and tore down the track on a stout run, by far the best of his weekend. At the finish line, the scoreboard read 4.806, leaving him 5-thousandths of a second short.
It wasn't just Worsham's quickest lap of the weekend, it was actually his quickest lap since the Chicago race in early June. It was also one of the best laps of the final session. It simply came at the wrong time.
"We lost the first run on Friday when we broke some stuff, and we never recovered from that," Worsham said. "After that, the car was acting odd and it took us a while to figure out it was a mechanical problem, not a tuning problem. We got it fixed, and made about as good a lap as we could make right there, at that time of day, in those conditions. But just like our whole year has gone, we had to come up a few thousandths short.
"It's unbelievable, and I'm not using that word lightly because I'm sitting here right now wondering how we could go out there and run that well, only to come up 5-thousandths short. I know it happened, but I don't believe it. Despite all that, I can't let myself get too down over this and I have to keep my team from getting too down over it all. We have a fast car, that's just going to get faster as we keep learning. Not being able to defend our Mac Tools U.S. Nationals title is gut wrenching, but we can't change reality. We're going to show what we're made of, and we're going to succeed. In the end, we just have to keep working on this, because we're going to have one of the fastest cars out here."
