LAST-DITCH SHOT COMES UP SHORT
Del Worsham smoked the tires at the 330-foot mark during Saturday's second session, and failed to make the field here in Topeka. Although a careful analysis of the Q4 run mystified Worsham more than anything, since the car seemed safe and on its way when it simply spun the tires for no apparent reason, Worsham was more thoughtful about what cost him a spot in this race.
"We lost two runs to mechanical issues, including the big run on Friday night when we were on our way to something that might have put us right at the top of the list, and when you give back two runs like that, you're just begging for this," Worsham said. "Drag racing is like any sport, in that you can't give the competition more than three outs, or four downs, or too many open shots. Here, we can't be giving laps away. We had a clutch problem last night, and then we had a problem with one cylinder on the left side of the motor in the first run today. We put ourselves in the hole, and put ourselves in the spot where we had to pull one out in the last session. We weren't unlucky, I can tell you that.
"Still, I felt really good about what we would do in Q4, because we had plenty of good data to work from and we weren't up there trying to be heroes. We just wanted to get in, and I was willing to take a spot in the bottom half to go with what I'm still sure was a safe tune-up. We were out there to run something between 4.95 and 4.99, nothing spectacular. There was fairly big oil-down in our lane right in front of us, but I can't honestly say that had anything to do with it. The car behind us in line went right down there, so it doesn't appear there was anything wrong with the track. But, I really don't understand why it did that. When it's your day, in this class, maybe there's nothing you can do about it, because good cars DNQ every week.
"This was a bad weekend, and a bad day. We can either cry about it or get back to work, and there's no question which of those two options we're going to pick. We'll go over everything, get this car ready, and go to Chicago to try to win the race. That would make up for this."
