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Del Worsham remained solidly planted in the No. 4 spot here in Houston, and will race Jerry Toliver in round one on Sunday. Only the bottom part of the qualifying sheet saw any jockeying on this mostly sunny and humid day, when tire smoke and incomplete runs were far more the rule than the exception. Worsham lifted early on his first Saturday pass, when he sensed a dropped cylinder, and he then came back for Q4, only to have his car mysteriously shut itself off after the burnout. Upon later analysis, it was discovered that the ignition "kill switch" (a device used only in emergencies to force the car to stop running) broken and failed, causing the car to cease functioning.
"I did a normal burnout, and when I lifted off the throttle it just quit," Worsham said. "It didn't lean out and rev up like it does when you shut off the fuel, it just totally immediately quit running. We towed it back here thinking we might find a faulty line in the ignition system, and right away we traced it to the kill switch. We figured something around the switch must have failed, but the actual little toggle switch itself had chosen that moment to break. Apparently these toggle switches have a life span, and it's one less run than we've made with that one.
"It was one of those things you almost have to laugh about. You hear about ten-dollar parts keeping the Space Shuttle on the pad, and that's what this was like. The way you have to look at this is that what just happened on Saturday could've happened one run later, on Sunday morning. You look at it that way, and you feel pretty lucky to have it expose itself right then, although we really wanted to make that run. It was pretty bizarre, so I'm taking that as a good omen for race day. How else could you look at it?"
WORSHAM STAYS 4th - BROKEN SWITCH IS "KILLJOY" ON FINAL PASS
Del Worsham remained solidly planted in the No. 4 spot here in Houston, and will race Jerry Toliver in round one on Sunday. Only the bottom part of the qualifying sheet saw any jockeying on this mostly sunny and humid day, when tire smoke and incomplete runs were far more the rule than the exception. Worsham lifted early on his first Saturday pass, when he sensed a dropped cylinder, and he then came back for Q4, only to have his car mysteriously shut itself off after the burnout. Upon later analysis, it was discovered that the ignition "kill switch" (a device used only in emergencies to force the car to stop running) broken and failed, causing the car to cease functioning.
"I did a normal burnout, and when I lifted off the throttle it just quit," Worsham said. "It didn't lean out and rev up like it does when you shut off the fuel, it just totally immediately quit running. We towed it back here thinking we might find a faulty line in the ignition system, and right away we traced it to the kill switch. We figured something around the switch must have failed, but the actual little toggle switch itself had chosen that moment to break. Apparently these toggle switches have a life span, and it's one less run than we've made with that one.
"It was one of those things you almost have to laugh about. You hear about ten-dollar parts keeping the Space Shuttle on the pad, and that's what this was like. The way you have to look at this is that what just happened on Saturday could've happened one run later, on Sunday morning. You look at it that way, and you feel pretty lucky to have it expose itself right then, although we really wanted to make that run. It was pretty bizarre, so I'm taking that as a good omen for race day. How else could you look at it?"
