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Like some sort of "process" laid out in text books by college psychology professors, the stages of frustration keep evolving for Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Funny Car driver Del Worsham. Early in the year, it was disbelief and practical denial, as the razor thin losses began to eat at his normally balanced outlook. As the ridiculous nature of his difficult season began to morph into other excruciating methods of defeat, the mood altered to one of pure disgust, with side-trips to the lands of depression and confusion. Today, all of the above checked in for a while, and anger made bold arrival. In the end, though, Worsham kept his head about him, and his wits in check.
On a track so hot it was unhealthy to touch, much less race upon, Worsham managed to qualify solidly and lead the entire pack in terms of top speed. His No. 9 position on the ladder was earned on Friday night, as was his class-leading speed reading of 317.64 mph. Under the lights on that evening, he and his CSK Monte Carlo team made sure they performed well, but safely, so as not to tempt the quirks of the DNQ fates by having to bust their way into the show in the heat of the day Saturday. Memories of Topeka, where just such an occurrence took place, will last with Worsham for a while.
"The Friday night session was it, as it is at most races this year," he said. "You can go out there loaded up, shooting for the top spot, but you run the risk of getting a little over the edge and putting yourself in a huge hole. In the past, we've been pretty aggressive on Friday night, but we've had a couple of bad things happen to us this year and our mood was definitely different. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to keep the people who support us happy, and you can't do that if you mess up on Friday night.
"So, we backed it down a little and went for a nice solid run that would secure a spot in the field, and give us a good baseline. That's exactly what we got, but we were hoping it would stick in the top half of the field. Instead, one of the last cars down the track ran a little quicker than us and we slid into the 9th spot. At first, that was another source of frustration, because it really did look like we had a one-lane track here, and losing lane choice was not good. As it turned out on Sunday, it wasn't so much a one-lane track, as it was a no-lane track. When it's 105 outside and the track temperature is about around 140, both lanes are going to have trouble."
Worsham faced Tony Pedregon in round one on a sweltering Sunday, as the final pair of Funny Cars to run in the opening round. Before firing up, they saw No. 1 qualifier Gary Densham go down to defeat. They saw points leader Ron Capps taken out, at the hands of the slick track and loss of traction. They saw a 5.31 and a 5.87 turn on win lights, and they saw Gary Scelzi "streak" to a 5.09 that, relatively speaking, looked like a world-record run. Worsham knew it was going to be tough.
"There was absolutely nothing easy out there, in either lane," he said. "There were winners in both lanes, but if two equal cars were running together out there, you tended to see the right lane give up the traction first. I was a little afraid of that, but I hoped we could get out on him with an aggressive front half, and maybe hold on."
Pedregon got a jump at the tree, getting away first by 58-thousandths of a second. Worsham made up much of that by 60-feet, and the cars were dead even at 330. By half-track, the red CSK machine was in front, and at 1,000-feet they remained in lock-step. At that point, the feared loss of grip on the right side began to make itself evident, as Worsham's car began to spin the tires. He kept his foot down, willing his car to the finish line, but when he crossed the line with a 5.276, it wasn't enough to take out Pedregon's slightly better 5.268, and Worsham could only contemplate the further aggravation this season has provided.
"It's been a huge struggle, there's no use denying that," he said. "We've lost by margins so thin you can't see the difference on the stop-action replay, we've made mistakes I wish I could take back, and we've also had some bad luck. Because of all that, we crossed a bridge a few weeks ago where we just made the decision to start changing things and adapting to new set-ups. We have to, because that's the only way we're going to get moving forward again.
"I figured we might take a step or two backwards while we make these changes, but we're learning. The way we run the clutch now, I'm still learning how it works and it's still a bit of a mystery as to why it does what it does, but I see the benefits. Once we get a handle on it, we're going to have a much easier car to tune, and we're going to get away from always having to be edgy. Until then, I have to try not to get too angry, or too depressed, or too anything. That's easy to say, but it's hard to do. It's hard not to feel the weight of the world on you right now, but we have to keep our chins up and go to Seattle aggressive."
It's a process. Del Worsham clearly hopes the next stage is relief. Jubilation wouldn't be bad, either, but he'd settle for relief.
WORSHAM'S FRUSTRATION BUILDS WITH FIRST-ROUND EXIT
Like some sort of "process" laid out in text books by college psychology professors, the stages of frustration keep evolving for Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Funny Car driver Del Worsham. Early in the year, it was disbelief and practical denial, as the razor thin losses began to eat at his normally balanced outlook. As the ridiculous nature of his difficult season began to morph into other excruciating methods of defeat, the mood altered to one of pure disgust, with side-trips to the lands of depression and confusion. Today, all of the above checked in for a while, and anger made bold arrival. In the end, though, Worsham kept his head about him, and his wits in check.
On a track so hot it was unhealthy to touch, much less race upon, Worsham managed to qualify solidly and lead the entire pack in terms of top speed. His No. 9 position on the ladder was earned on Friday night, as was his class-leading speed reading of 317.64 mph. Under the lights on that evening, he and his CSK Monte Carlo team made sure they performed well, but safely, so as not to tempt the quirks of the DNQ fates by having to bust their way into the show in the heat of the day Saturday. Memories of Topeka, where just such an occurrence took place, will last with Worsham for a while.
"The Friday night session was it, as it is at most races this year," he said. "You can go out there loaded up, shooting for the top spot, but you run the risk of getting a little over the edge and putting yourself in a huge hole. In the past, we've been pretty aggressive on Friday night, but we've had a couple of bad things happen to us this year and our mood was definitely different. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to keep the people who support us happy, and you can't do that if you mess up on Friday night.
"So, we backed it down a little and went for a nice solid run that would secure a spot in the field, and give us a good baseline. That's exactly what we got, but we were hoping it would stick in the top half of the field. Instead, one of the last cars down the track ran a little quicker than us and we slid into the 9th spot. At first, that was another source of frustration, because it really did look like we had a one-lane track here, and losing lane choice was not good. As it turned out on Sunday, it wasn't so much a one-lane track, as it was a no-lane track. When it's 105 outside and the track temperature is about around 140, both lanes are going to have trouble."
Worsham faced Tony Pedregon in round one on a sweltering Sunday, as the final pair of Funny Cars to run in the opening round. Before firing up, they saw No. 1 qualifier Gary Densham go down to defeat. They saw points leader Ron Capps taken out, at the hands of the slick track and loss of traction. They saw a 5.31 and a 5.87 turn on win lights, and they saw Gary Scelzi "streak" to a 5.09 that, relatively speaking, looked like a world-record run. Worsham knew it was going to be tough.
"There was absolutely nothing easy out there, in either lane," he said. "There were winners in both lanes, but if two equal cars were running together out there, you tended to see the right lane give up the traction first. I was a little afraid of that, but I hoped we could get out on him with an aggressive front half, and maybe hold on."
Pedregon got a jump at the tree, getting away first by 58-thousandths of a second. Worsham made up much of that by 60-feet, and the cars were dead even at 330. By half-track, the red CSK machine was in front, and at 1,000-feet they remained in lock-step. At that point, the feared loss of grip on the right side began to make itself evident, as Worsham's car began to spin the tires. He kept his foot down, willing his car to the finish line, but when he crossed the line with a 5.276, it wasn't enough to take out Pedregon's slightly better 5.268, and Worsham could only contemplate the further aggravation this season has provided.
"It's been a huge struggle, there's no use denying that," he said. "We've lost by margins so thin you can't see the difference on the stop-action replay, we've made mistakes I wish I could take back, and we've also had some bad luck. Because of all that, we crossed a bridge a few weeks ago where we just made the decision to start changing things and adapting to new set-ups. We have to, because that's the only way we're going to get moving forward again.
"I figured we might take a step or two backwards while we make these changes, but we're learning. The way we run the clutch now, I'm still learning how it works and it's still a bit of a mystery as to why it does what it does, but I see the benefits. Once we get a handle on it, we're going to have a much easier car to tune, and we're going to get away from always having to be edgy. Until then, I have to try not to get too angry, or too depressed, or too anything. That's easy to say, but it's hard to do. It's hard not to feel the weight of the world on you right now, but we have to keep our chins up and go to Seattle aggressive."
It's a process. Del Worsham clearly hopes the next stage is relief. Jubilation wouldn't be bad, either, but he'd settle for relief.
