WORSHAM'S FRIDAY NOT WHAT HE WAS LOOKING FOR

Del Worsham will head into Saturday outside the field, here in Norwalk, after spinning the tires on his first run and then suffering serious engine and chassis damage on the later lap. Worsham's team is swapping cars tonight, and will run a back-up car for the rest of the weekend.

"We just got a little over-center on the first lap, trying to run a 4.80 on a 4.85 race track," Worsham said. "I wasn't too worried about it, and I figured we had a solid 4.77 or 4.78 in it for the night session. It was really running pretty well for the front half of the track, and I remember now that it made an odd little noise at just about the 660 timer. Any other time, I might have lifted but this was the night session and I thought the run was too important, so I kept my foot down. At about 900 feet or so, it just went poof and quit, then it started banging and clanging and it sounded like everything in the motor was coming apart.

"We got it back here to the pit, and we're trying to find out why it did that. It basically leveled the motor, and it hurt the chassis, so we're swapping out the cars and we'll run the other one from here on. It's going to be a long night, but it's what we have to do. The good news is that it's not supposed to be 95 or 100 degrees tomorrow, because if the weather was normal here right now and it got that hot, we'd be in a world of hurt. It's supposed to be in the mid-70s, so if we go A to B, we can get in the field."