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Sonoma, Calif. (July 30) -- Just when you think you've seen it all.... After qualifying well in the No. 3 spot, and outrunning first round opponent Tony Bartone in round one, Del Worsham still had to face the gut wrenching truth that his day was over, and he did so with no excuses. Seeing Worsham go down to defeat at the hands of a hole-shot is such a rare sight, most team members, supporters, and fans could only stare at the scoreboard, waiting for the obviously malfunctioning win light to switch over to Worsham's side of the track. In a year full of close losses, this one joined the parade at 17-thousandths of a second. It was the part about running 4.996 and still losing to a 5.023 that really hurt.
"No excuses, none at all," Worsham said. "I was dead late. I don't know why this is all happening to us, but we seem fully capable of finding every possible way to lose. The fact we outran him and I messed up just makes it worse. I'll take the blame, it was me in there and I was late. End of story."
Worsham's weekend had started and developed with much promise. He sat in the No. 2 spot on the qualifying list until the final session, when Eric Medlen leapfrogged ahead of him to knock the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen car into the 3rd spot. Even with that, the position matched Worsham's best effort of the season and gave the CSK driver some confidence, but he still entered Sunday with more question marks floating around his head than exclamation points.
"We're still chasing the car a little bit, going back and forth on where we want to be," he said. "It will throw us a bone from time to time, and the Friday night qualifying run here was great, so I'll take that bone. We're running big speed at the top end, which is also great, but more times than not the car is just a little bit too slow to half-track. I have to think it's a clutch issue, because we're just not able to get the car up and going off the line. If we try to get a little aggressive, to improve our 60-foot and 330 times, we start smoking the tires.
"So we're obviously missing something early, and until we get this back to where we want it to be we're going to be prime candidates for losing more close races. It's good to be charging hard at the end of the track, so I don't want to lose what we have there, but we've been giving up a little too much at the front end, and that has to be corrected. When you give the other guy a head start, and then try to track him down, it's not that hard to come up a foot short."
That explanation of his current woes was clearly represented in his first round race, versus Bartone. Not only was Worsham late to react, his car was also a bit soft off the line. By mid-track, he was reeling Bartone in like a trophy fish, and by the finish line he was charging hard at 318.09 mph as he flew by his opponent. Worsham's top-end speed was matched only by John Force and Robert Hight in round one, as each of them also ran 318 and change.
"If the track was 3-feet longer, we win," Worsham said. "I was gaining on him so fast I thought I actually caught him. I knew I'd been late on the tree, and for quite a while he was just out there ahead of me, but then they must have started to have problems just as our car started to perk up and run, and those two things combined made it look like he was backing up towards me. We just put ourselves in too big of a hole to make it up. If I was just 'normal' at the tree, we win going away. No excuses."
A tough loss, and another close one. A driver who has carried his team too many times to count, who is the foundation of his entire organization and the reason for all its success, comes out on the short end this one time. Just when you think you've seen it all...
WORSHAM'S LOSS HITS HARD
Sonoma, Calif. (July 30) -- Just when you think you've seen it all.... After qualifying well in the No. 3 spot, and outrunning first round opponent Tony Bartone in round one, Del Worsham still had to face the gut wrenching truth that his day was over, and he did so with no excuses. Seeing Worsham go down to defeat at the hands of a hole-shot is such a rare sight, most team members, supporters, and fans could only stare at the scoreboard, waiting for the obviously malfunctioning win light to switch over to Worsham's side of the track. In a year full of close losses, this one joined the parade at 17-thousandths of a second. It was the part about running 4.996 and still losing to a 5.023 that really hurt.
"No excuses, none at all," Worsham said. "I was dead late. I don't know why this is all happening to us, but we seem fully capable of finding every possible way to lose. The fact we outran him and I messed up just makes it worse. I'll take the blame, it was me in there and I was late. End of story."
Worsham's weekend had started and developed with much promise. He sat in the No. 2 spot on the qualifying list until the final session, when Eric Medlen leapfrogged ahead of him to knock the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen car into the 3rd spot. Even with that, the position matched Worsham's best effort of the season and gave the CSK driver some confidence, but he still entered Sunday with more question marks floating around his head than exclamation points.
"We're still chasing the car a little bit, going back and forth on where we want to be," he said. "It will throw us a bone from time to time, and the Friday night qualifying run here was great, so I'll take that bone. We're running big speed at the top end, which is also great, but more times than not the car is just a little bit too slow to half-track. I have to think it's a clutch issue, because we're just not able to get the car up and going off the line. If we try to get a little aggressive, to improve our 60-foot and 330 times, we start smoking the tires.
"So we're obviously missing something early, and until we get this back to where we want it to be we're going to be prime candidates for losing more close races. It's good to be charging hard at the end of the track, so I don't want to lose what we have there, but we've been giving up a little too much at the front end, and that has to be corrected. When you give the other guy a head start, and then try to track him down, it's not that hard to come up a foot short."
That explanation of his current woes was clearly represented in his first round race, versus Bartone. Not only was Worsham late to react, his car was also a bit soft off the line. By mid-track, he was reeling Bartone in like a trophy fish, and by the finish line he was charging hard at 318.09 mph as he flew by his opponent. Worsham's top-end speed was matched only by John Force and Robert Hight in round one, as each of them also ran 318 and change.
"If the track was 3-feet longer, we win," Worsham said. "I was gaining on him so fast I thought I actually caught him. I knew I'd been late on the tree, and for quite a while he was just out there ahead of me, but then they must have started to have problems just as our car started to perk up and run, and those two things combined made it look like he was backing up towards me. We just put ourselves in too big of a hole to make it up. If I was just 'normal' at the tree, we win going away. No excuses."
A tough loss, and another close one. A driver who has carried his team too many times to count, who is the foundation of his entire organization and the reason for all its success, comes out on the short end this one time. Just when you think you've seen it all...
