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Del Worsham and Ron Capps are, actually, friends. They enjoy each other's company, spend time with each other in the motorhome parking area when the racing is done, and generally get along like the buddies they are. You'll have to forgive Worsham, though, if he makes it clear he wants nothing more to do with Capps on Sunday. For the fourth time this season, Worsham was ousted by Capps on race day, and for the fourth time the racing was heartbreakingly close. It's an old story, but it demands to be retold once again.
Worsham drove his Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Monte Carlo to the 14th spot in the field during a hot, sunny, difficult weekend in Seattle, at the Schuck's Nationals. Still working on new tuning approaches during qualifying, Worsham accepted the lower qualifying spot as part of the sacrifice he and his team need to make in order to improve, but he also knew that 14th slot would make it much more difficult on Sunday.
"We've won out of the 16th spot, so the old saying about just being in the field is true, but we pretty much guaranteed ourselves a tough opponent in round one," Worsham said. "We've been mixing in new stuff and new approaches, and the only way to do that is to go for it during qualifying. In drag racing, you don't have the luxury of spending a couple of weeks testing on a private track. So, getting in 14th got us in the show, but we had to race Ron in round one and that's not easy. He's not the points leader by mistake.
"We made some changes to the car on Saturday night, and I was about 100% confident that we'd go from A to B on Sunday, and that we'd put a good lap on the board. I just didn't know if it would be enough. I had serious doubts that we'd scare Capps and his team into making a mistake. They don't make too many mistakes, so we had to be there and give them a fair fight. I was absolutely not going to be the one making the mistake."
Entering round one with a best of 4.975 on the board, Worsham was lined up next to Capps' green machine knowing the guys in the other lane had run 4.864 during qualifying. Though Sunday's heat and sunshine made running those kinds of numbers pure fantasy, Worsham still knew he needed to step up in a major way to win the round.
"We needed to step up, and we needed the heat to neutralize things a bit," he said. "By stepping up, I mean relative to what the track was capable of giving up. We thought it was a 4.99 to a 5.05 track for round one, so we were aiming right in that window. I figured it would be close."
At the flash of amber, Capps got a slight jump on the CSK driver, grabbing a small 16-thousandths advantage at the tree. As both cars tore down the track, just about all of Worsham's predictions came true. He did, indeed, traverse the entire track without losing traction. It was also close. And, relatively speaking, he did step up. But, as has been the case against Capps all year, the final verdict was settled my thousandths of a second, and the "Brut-al" truth was another close loss. 76-thousandths of a second was the margin.
"It wears on you, I'll admit that," Worsham said. "It's been year where I feel like I've aged a decade in seven months. We can't seem to catch a break, we can't seem to force the issue, and we keep losing by a fender. If we get aggressive, we go a little too far and hand the round away. If we're confident, like we were today, the other guy just flat outruns us by a half of a car length. Nothing's really going right, right now, but we're not going to quit.
"We going to pack up the circus and head for Sonoma. And when we get back on the track there on Friday, we'll be out there to qualify high and win the race. We need something to cheer about around here."
Until then, Worsham and Capps will remain friends. They can't help that; it's just what they are. But don't expect to see Worsham picking up the tab at dinner anytime soon.
WORSHAM'S SHIP IS "CAPPS-SIZED" AGAIN
Del Worsham and Ron Capps are, actually, friends. They enjoy each other's company, spend time with each other in the motorhome parking area when the racing is done, and generally get along like the buddies they are. You'll have to forgive Worsham, though, if he makes it clear he wants nothing more to do with Capps on Sunday. For the fourth time this season, Worsham was ousted by Capps on race day, and for the fourth time the racing was heartbreakingly close. It's an old story, but it demands to be retold once again.
Worsham drove his Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Monte Carlo to the 14th spot in the field during a hot, sunny, difficult weekend in Seattle, at the Schuck's Nationals. Still working on new tuning approaches during qualifying, Worsham accepted the lower qualifying spot as part of the sacrifice he and his team need to make in order to improve, but he also knew that 14th slot would make it much more difficult on Sunday.
"We've won out of the 16th spot, so the old saying about just being in the field is true, but we pretty much guaranteed ourselves a tough opponent in round one," Worsham said. "We've been mixing in new stuff and new approaches, and the only way to do that is to go for it during qualifying. In drag racing, you don't have the luxury of spending a couple of weeks testing on a private track. So, getting in 14th got us in the show, but we had to race Ron in round one and that's not easy. He's not the points leader by mistake.
"We made some changes to the car on Saturday night, and I was about 100% confident that we'd go from A to B on Sunday, and that we'd put a good lap on the board. I just didn't know if it would be enough. I had serious doubts that we'd scare Capps and his team into making a mistake. They don't make too many mistakes, so we had to be there and give them a fair fight. I was absolutely not going to be the one making the mistake."
Entering round one with a best of 4.975 on the board, Worsham was lined up next to Capps' green machine knowing the guys in the other lane had run 4.864 during qualifying. Though Sunday's heat and sunshine made running those kinds of numbers pure fantasy, Worsham still knew he needed to step up in a major way to win the round.
"We needed to step up, and we needed the heat to neutralize things a bit," he said. "By stepping up, I mean relative to what the track was capable of giving up. We thought it was a 4.99 to a 5.05 track for round one, so we were aiming right in that window. I figured it would be close."
At the flash of amber, Capps got a slight jump on the CSK driver, grabbing a small 16-thousandths advantage at the tree. As both cars tore down the track, just about all of Worsham's predictions came true. He did, indeed, traverse the entire track without losing traction. It was also close. And, relatively speaking, he did step up. But, as has been the case against Capps all year, the final verdict was settled my thousandths of a second, and the "Brut-al" truth was another close loss. 76-thousandths of a second was the margin.
"It wears on you, I'll admit that," Worsham said. "It's been year where I feel like I've aged a decade in seven months. We can't seem to catch a break, we can't seem to force the issue, and we keep losing by a fender. If we get aggressive, we go a little too far and hand the round away. If we're confident, like we were today, the other guy just flat outruns us by a half of a car length. Nothing's really going right, right now, but we're not going to quit.
"We going to pack up the circus and head for Sonoma. And when we get back on the track there on Friday, we'll be out there to qualify high and win the race. We need something to cheer about around here."
Until then, Worsham and Capps will remain friends. They can't help that; it's just what they are. But don't expect to see Worsham picking up the tab at dinner anytime soon.
