WORSHAM'S BEST-EVER ISN'T ENOUGH
<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/d_worsham.jpg" alt="d_worsham"align="right"borders="0" />
Del Worsham summed it up both succinctly and eloquently after the first round in Richmond, when he said "Well, there's the last couple of years all packaged-up with a ribbon and a bow on it, right there."
He had just made his quickest run ever to the 1,000-foot finish line (and, therefore, the quickest run of his career) by posting a stellar 4.050 in the opening stanza, on a beautiful Sunday morning. The lap would've beaten Tommy Johnson, Melanie Troxel, Tim Wilkerson, Tony Pedregon, and Ron Capps, who all won their match-ups. Coming into this event, a 4.050 would have even been the quickest run ever to 1,000 feet, but here, on this day and on this record-smashing weekend, it lost. Jack Beckman, running in the left lane, clicked through the lights with a 4.048 to defeat Worsham by a fender.
"You can't even be mad or anything," Worsham said. "You just look back over the last couple of years and remember all those races we lost by a few thousandths or even 10-thousandths of a second, and this one ranks right up there with all of them. We run our best lap of the season, and really one of our best laps ever, and we still get beat. That's just the way this deal has gone lately."
Getting to that first round was a trial for Worsham and his Checker, Schuck's, Kragen team, as they had to battle an ill-handling car throughout qualifying, while also relying on the veteran driver to force the issue on Friday night. On that critical run, Worsham's car made the same strong move to the left it had made in the first session, and that it would make again in Q4, but late on Friday afternoon Worsham was able to keep the car off the center-line to post the 4.078 that would eventually land him 10th on the grid. The Q4 run, during which the car again jerked to the left despite Worsham's best effort to steer it the other way, resulted in a center-line transgression as well as a solid impact with one of the timing blocks. Despite being made of synthetic foam and as soft as a sofa pillow, those blocks are fully capable of knocking a hole in a carbon-fiber Funny Car when said Funny Car is traveling at a high rate of speed, and this one did just that, punching its own square image into the nose of the car.
"I think it was a combination of our car doing some stuff, and we fixed all of that, plus the way the track works here and the tendency for everyone to move to the middle when they're in the right lane," Worsham said. "On the last run, it faded a bit, I brought it back and thought we were good, but then it shot back over so fast I couldn't correct it, and we hole-punched the nose like we were knocking a tooth out of the car's grill. I hated the fact that it happened, but we watched the video a hundred times and I have no idea how I could've avoided it without lifting."
With a hole in the nose of their favored gray car, Worsham's team brought "old red" back out of the transporter for Sunday, and the stark difference between the monochrome version and the bright red Impala was as vivid as the early scenes in "The Wizard of Oz." Where once was there was nothing but shades of gray, there now was a bright red Funny Car, glistening in the sunlight.
On Sunday morning, as cool air blanketed the region, Worsham and his peers knew the recipe was in place for amazingly quick times. The track had been stout all weekend, the conditions were great, and the competition was fierce, with huge implications for the Countdown to the Championship. Every ingredient for a dramatic day was in place, in abundance.
"We knew as soon as we walked out of the hotel this morning," Worsham said. "We've been shattering records all weekend, but usually when you finally get to Sunday, and you're racing under the sun all day, things slow down. You could just sense that nothing was going to be slow today, especially in the first round, when the sun hadn't really had a chance to do much yet. I knew it was going to be huge, and we talked about the fact we'd have to make our best-ever run to 1,000-feet if we wanted to win.
"I was pretty sure we had the handling thing solved, and I was way more ready to focus on keeping the car from getting sucked to the center, so that wasn't even on my mind. I was far more concerned about putting a good number up on the board."
Worsham did just that, ripping down the track in a side-by-side battle, after having watched a slew of stunning efforts by the six pairs that ran ahead of him. Robert Hight's eye-popping 4.005 came during the first pairing, shattering the previous best to 1,000 feet. Once the jaws of the assembled masses were picked back up from the ground, Crew Chiefs and crew members scurried to make what changes they could. This was clearly a track that could handle the most punishing tune-up without so much as a flinch.
In the end, Worsham's 4.050 was the 4th-quickest of the 16 laps made in round one. As stated above, it would've beaten most of the other winners. It just didn't beat Jack Beckman.
"We'll go to Las Vegas and Pomona with all this in mind, and with a ton of confidence," Worsham summarized. "There's no reason not to put it all on the table and go for whatever glory we have left. No reason at all. We're running as well as we ever have, so maybe things will go our way in one of these last two races, and we won't have to talk about how proud we are to have lost such a close race. It's about time we win a few side-by-side close ones. I know I'm ready, and this team deserves it."
As does the driver.
<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/d_worsham.jpg" alt="d_worsham"align="right"borders="0" />
Del Worsham summed it up both succinctly and eloquently after the first round in Richmond, when he said "Well, there's the last couple of years all packaged-up with a ribbon and a bow on it, right there."
He had just made his quickest run ever to the 1,000-foot finish line (and, therefore, the quickest run of his career) by posting a stellar 4.050 in the opening stanza, on a beautiful Sunday morning. The lap would've beaten Tommy Johnson, Melanie Troxel, Tim Wilkerson, Tony Pedregon, and Ron Capps, who all won their match-ups. Coming into this event, a 4.050 would have even been the quickest run ever to 1,000 feet, but here, on this day and on this record-smashing weekend, it lost. Jack Beckman, running in the left lane, clicked through the lights with a 4.048 to defeat Worsham by a fender.
"You can't even be mad or anything," Worsham said. "You just look back over the last couple of years and remember all those races we lost by a few thousandths or even 10-thousandths of a second, and this one ranks right up there with all of them. We run our best lap of the season, and really one of our best laps ever, and we still get beat. That's just the way this deal has gone lately."
Getting to that first round was a trial for Worsham and his Checker, Schuck's, Kragen team, as they had to battle an ill-handling car throughout qualifying, while also relying on the veteran driver to force the issue on Friday night. On that critical run, Worsham's car made the same strong move to the left it had made in the first session, and that it would make again in Q4, but late on Friday afternoon Worsham was able to keep the car off the center-line to post the 4.078 that would eventually land him 10th on the grid. The Q4 run, during which the car again jerked to the left despite Worsham's best effort to steer it the other way, resulted in a center-line transgression as well as a solid impact with one of the timing blocks. Despite being made of synthetic foam and as soft as a sofa pillow, those blocks are fully capable of knocking a hole in a carbon-fiber Funny Car when said Funny Car is traveling at a high rate of speed, and this one did just that, punching its own square image into the nose of the car.
"I think it was a combination of our car doing some stuff, and we fixed all of that, plus the way the track works here and the tendency for everyone to move to the middle when they're in the right lane," Worsham said. "On the last run, it faded a bit, I brought it back and thought we were good, but then it shot back over so fast I couldn't correct it, and we hole-punched the nose like we were knocking a tooth out of the car's grill. I hated the fact that it happened, but we watched the video a hundred times and I have no idea how I could've avoided it without lifting."
With a hole in the nose of their favored gray car, Worsham's team brought "old red" back out of the transporter for Sunday, and the stark difference between the monochrome version and the bright red Impala was as vivid as the early scenes in "The Wizard of Oz." Where once was there was nothing but shades of gray, there now was a bright red Funny Car, glistening in the sunlight.
On Sunday morning, as cool air blanketed the region, Worsham and his peers knew the recipe was in place for amazingly quick times. The track had been stout all weekend, the conditions were great, and the competition was fierce, with huge implications for the Countdown to the Championship. Every ingredient for a dramatic day was in place, in abundance.
"We knew as soon as we walked out of the hotel this morning," Worsham said. "We've been shattering records all weekend, but usually when you finally get to Sunday, and you're racing under the sun all day, things slow down. You could just sense that nothing was going to be slow today, especially in the first round, when the sun hadn't really had a chance to do much yet. I knew it was going to be huge, and we talked about the fact we'd have to make our best-ever run to 1,000-feet if we wanted to win.
"I was pretty sure we had the handling thing solved, and I was way more ready to focus on keeping the car from getting sucked to the center, so that wasn't even on my mind. I was far more concerned about putting a good number up on the board."
Worsham did just that, ripping down the track in a side-by-side battle, after having watched a slew of stunning efforts by the six pairs that ran ahead of him. Robert Hight's eye-popping 4.005 came during the first pairing, shattering the previous best to 1,000 feet. Once the jaws of the assembled masses were picked back up from the ground, Crew Chiefs and crew members scurried to make what changes they could. This was clearly a track that could handle the most punishing tune-up without so much as a flinch.
In the end, Worsham's 4.050 was the 4th-quickest of the 16 laps made in round one. As stated above, it would've beaten most of the other winners. It just didn't beat Jack Beckman.
"We'll go to Las Vegas and Pomona with all this in mind, and with a ton of confidence," Worsham summarized. "There's no reason not to put it all on the table and go for whatever glory we have left. No reason at all. We're running as well as we ever have, so maybe things will go our way in one of these last two races, and we won't have to talk about how proud we are to have lost such a close race. It's about time we win a few side-by-side close ones. I know I'm ready, and this team deserves it."
As does the driver.
