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Del Worsham never really thought his 4.898 was good enough to make the field, even though it offered a bit of a cushion prior to today, by landing him in the provisional 14th spot. By the time the third session was over, on a hot and muggy Saturday, Worsham had fallen to the 16th spot, with teammate Jeff Arend, along with front-runners Kenny Bernstein, and Ashley Force outside the field, hoping to get in.
Arend, he of the longest consecutive qualifying streak in the class, went first in Q4. The CSK blue car's solid 4.944 was one of the better laps of the session, which saw nine out of 19 cars fail to make a full lap, but it wasn't good enough. Arend's "top dog" streak, only one week old, was therefore over, leaving the crown to rookie Ashley Force, who had qualified at 10 in a row. She lined up next to Worsham as the next pair, and the CSK driver figured he needed to outrun the young gun to stay in, but she had to shut off at the starting line with mechanical problems while Worsham spun the tires. Young Miss Force's tenure as the qualifying streak leader lasted all of about two minutes, and the fact she failed to make the program passed the ill-fitting tiara on to another driver, who just happened to be named Worsham. After failing to make the field at the first two races this season, Del Worsham has now made 10 consecutive shows.
Worsham will face Tim Wilkerson in round one, and has announced he will utilize Arend's blue CSK Impala, rather than his own red '06 Monte Carlo, during the race. Coincidentally, Arend tagged the wall lightly in that car earlier in the day, so the blue team was faced with fixing the body on Saturday night, so that the boss could run it on Sunday.
"I absolutely wasn't counting on making it in with our 4.89, but we have had the weekend from you-know-where here in Bristol, where everything that could go wrong seems to have gone wrong," Worsham said.
"We hoped we left all this nonsense behind in Norwalk, but we've had push rod problems, oil pump problems, mag drive problems, and before the last run we were thrashing away again because two cylinders were really wet on the warm-up. We hate it that Jeff and the blue team didn't make it, but man just look at the class this year. Can you even possibly believe that I'm the guy with the longest streak now? I don't know if it's a curse or not, but I know it tells you that this class is ridiculous and the parity is about universal.
"The blue guys are fixing Jeff's car, where it got all scraped up when he nicked the wall, and we'll put my name and number on that blue Impala and race with it tomorrow. I just think we have a better hot track tune-up with the Impala, for whatever reason, so we'll go with that. And thanks to the blue team, who are working hard tonight to fix and repair it, we'll be able to do that."
WORSHAM HANGS ON 16th, WILL WEAR BLUE ON SUNDAY
Del Worsham never really thought his 4.898 was good enough to make the field, even though it offered a bit of a cushion prior to today, by landing him in the provisional 14th spot. By the time the third session was over, on a hot and muggy Saturday, Worsham had fallen to the 16th spot, with teammate Jeff Arend, along with front-runners Kenny Bernstein, and Ashley Force outside the field, hoping to get in.
Arend, he of the longest consecutive qualifying streak in the class, went first in Q4. The CSK blue car's solid 4.944 was one of the better laps of the session, which saw nine out of 19 cars fail to make a full lap, but it wasn't good enough. Arend's "top dog" streak, only one week old, was therefore over, leaving the crown to rookie Ashley Force, who had qualified at 10 in a row. She lined up next to Worsham as the next pair, and the CSK driver figured he needed to outrun the young gun to stay in, but she had to shut off at the starting line with mechanical problems while Worsham spun the tires. Young Miss Force's tenure as the qualifying streak leader lasted all of about two minutes, and the fact she failed to make the program passed the ill-fitting tiara on to another driver, who just happened to be named Worsham. After failing to make the field at the first two races this season, Del Worsham has now made 10 consecutive shows.
Worsham will face Tim Wilkerson in round one, and has announced he will utilize Arend's blue CSK Impala, rather than his own red '06 Monte Carlo, during the race. Coincidentally, Arend tagged the wall lightly in that car earlier in the day, so the blue team was faced with fixing the body on Saturday night, so that the boss could run it on Sunday.
"I absolutely wasn't counting on making it in with our 4.89, but we have had the weekend from you-know-where here in Bristol, where everything that could go wrong seems to have gone wrong," Worsham said.
"We hoped we left all this nonsense behind in Norwalk, but we've had push rod problems, oil pump problems, mag drive problems, and before the last run we were thrashing away again because two cylinders were really wet on the warm-up. We hate it that Jeff and the blue team didn't make it, but man just look at the class this year. Can you even possibly believe that I'm the guy with the longest streak now? I don't know if it's a curse or not, but I know it tells you that this class is ridiculous and the parity is about universal.
"The blue guys are fixing Jeff's car, where it got all scraped up when he nicked the wall, and we'll put my name and number on that blue Impala and race with it tomorrow. I just think we have a better hot track tune-up with the Impala, for whatever reason, so we'll go with that. And thanks to the blue team, who are working hard tonight to fix and repair it, we'll be able to do that."
