WORSHAM NIPPED IN FINAL ROUND BY "THAT MUCH"
With such a great history of strong runs in Sonoma, Del Worsham seemed to be dialed-in for a big weekend at Infineon Raceway. In the end, he was indeed, no matter how you define "big weekend," but by mere inches he was denied the giant payoff as the sun began to set on Sunday. Racing John Force in the final round at the Fram Autolite Nationals, Worsham paced the sport's greatest icon for the length of the 1,320-foot Sonoma track, only to come up inches short of his first win since late in the 2005 season. All in all, it was an outstanding weekend for every member of Team CSK, and a wonderful day for the popular Checker, Schuck's, Kragen driver, who was surrounded by fans all day, many of them chanting "Del, Del, Del..." as he advanced through eliminations. It was just "that much" short of being
everything Worsham was hoping for.
Coming into this race 11th in points and averaging a 13th spot on the race ladder, after 14 races, Worsham looked at Infineon as a place he could quickly "get well," and he wasted little time doing that. Qualifying session No. 1 was little more than a tire smoking affair for the entire class, but under the lights on Friday night Worsham put one of his patented Sonoma home runs on the board, streaking to a 4.774 at 322.04 mph. It was his quickest qualifying time of the year.
On Saturday, under the sun instead of the lights, the first session was again an exercise in near futility, for the entire Funny Car contingent, but Worsham came back in Q4 with a clean 4.909 that raised eyebrows. How could a run so much slower than his best qualifying effort do that? By simply being the best run of the fourth session. Crew Chiefs throughout the pit area were quick to notice how Worsham, with his now almost-familiar blue CSK Impala body on his car, had paced the class when the sun was out. That would be important, as the sun was sure to be out on race day.
Finishing 5th on the ladder, Worsham equaled his best qualifying effort on the season, and for that accomplishment he was granted a first round date not with a driver behind him in points, nor with a driver near him in points, nor even a driver only slightly ahead of him in the POWERade list. He was matched up with points leader Ron Capps, who had qualified 12th.
"Give me a break, right," Worsham said. "We haven't exactly had many easy rounds all year, but to finally come out here and really get a great handle on it, and qualify as well as we did, but still get the points leader in round one, well it just seemed to me that we had a great day in front of us if we could somehow get out of the first round. Ron and I are great friends, and we socialize and text message each other all the time, but man he usually wears me out when we race each other."
After having seen teammate Jeff Arend take out big hitter Tony Pedregon in round one, Worsham also knew a win over Capps would guarantee a semi-final appearance for one of the Team CSK drivers, as the ladder had them potentially meeting up in round two.
Though Capps got off the line with a microscopic edge, it was that Sonoma consistency that won this round for Worsham. He powered to a clean 4.889 with the sun beating on the track, to take the big win with room to spare over Capps' 4.986.
"Huge win, no matter how you cut it," Worsham said. "So many times, over the past two years, we've had these major rounds staring us in the face and we've run great, easily well enough to win, but we get nipped by inches. I felt good about today, but there were so many variables there, and such a great chance to smoke the tires or get into a pedal-fest, so it was huge for us to get that win. Nothing but huge."
Round two brought about the Worsham/Arend match-up the two teammates had envisioned since the end of qualifying. Like prize fighters, both teams retired to their respective corners to plot their strategy independently, and both came out firing. Worsham, obviously starting to feel the confidence he needs at the starting line, chose a great time to get a sizable jump at the tree, grabbing a quick 22-thousandths edge as the two cars left the line. They battled each other the length of the track, with Arend's Techron Impala closing the gap with each revolution of the big Goodyear slicks. At the line, it was Worsham over his teammate, in a thrilling hole-shot victory, taking the round with a solid 4.929 to win by hair or, technically, 5-thousandths of a second.
"We've lost so many races by thousandths, even by 10-thousandths, so to come out of that one with a win by inches was like a shot of adrenalin for all of us," Worsham said. "Jeff is one of the best at the line, and our blue team is really running well. They put a great lap on the board, and I finally feel like I did something to help my guys win a big round. It was pretty major for all of us, to be headed to the semi-final."
In that semi, a certain Robert Hight would be waiting for Worsham. That would be the Robert Hight who came into this race in the No. 2 spot on the points list, with two race victories and so many No. 1 qualifying spots they should simply insert him there and save the rest of the class the trouble. At the flash of amber, Worsham slightly bettered his round two reaction time, and once again got off the line first. This one, however, was over almost instantly, as Hight failed to cover more than 60-feet under power while Worsham rocketed to a clean 4.898, moving him on to his second final round of the season. Waiting for him there, would be a certain legend and TV star named Force. John Force.
"It really felt like our day, all day, and we went up there to beat John fair and square," Worsham said. "You travel to all these races, you come out here on Sunday all year long, and there are days that just feel a little different. A different look in all the guys' eyes, a bit of confidence instead of worry, and today was one of those days. It felt like our day. I could taste the win."
Instead, Force managed to pull away in the last 300 feet, after Worsham had led or been even with him for most of the lap. A dropped cylinder on the left side of Worsham's Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Impala was the culprit, and instead of a raucous celebration, Team CSK had to retire to their pit area to finish their work, tear down the rigs, and look ahead. And in the end, Worsham could approach the result philosophically, though still with a bit of frustration tainting his words.
"We were good enough to win this race, and our car has been getting better race after race," he said. "We did just about everything right, and we gave them as big a race as they could handle, but we came up a few inches short at the other end. These cars do drop cylinders, it happens to everyone out here, but we had one go out on us with 300 feet between us and a gigantic win. We're smiling now, and we knew we had a great weekend and a great day, but it was tough to take at the moment.
"You know, we'll just have to see if we finally got this deal sorted out in time, or if we run out of time for the Countdown. We have two races left, and we're a little more than four rounds out of the eighth spot, so we have to stay locked in and we're going to need some help from some other teams, but we're not going to approach any race any differently than we ever had. Whether it's Brainerd in two weeks, or Reading after that, we're pulling into every race track to win. If we come up short, it will be easy to look back at this round here, or that round there, but we won't do that. We're just here to do our best, and that's what we did today. Our day will come."
Spoken like a true winner.
