On a day when the conditions improved as the clocked ticked toward nightfall, and where it was clearly going to be a “make or break” deal during the Friday evening “hero session, ” Del Worsham clicked off a strong 4.795 under the lights, in front of a huge Route 66 crowd. The lap initially landed him in the No. 4 spot, but by the time the session was over Worsham had slid to the No. 13 position.
During Friday’s afternoon session, only Kenny Bernstein was able to negotiate the full length of the track, leaving everyone else to fight for what little traction was available.
Two more laps will be run on Saturday, though the it remains to be seen how the daylight conditions will effect performances.
“The first session was pretty lousy, for everybody, and then right in the middle of it we had one of the biggest oil-downs of the year, so the whole session took more than two hours to run, ” Worsham said. “That put us a little behind schedule, so we didn’t even start the night session until just after 9:00, and every team out here knew this was going to be a huge home run deal. The pressure was really on not to make any mistakes.
“We put a nice solid lap on the board, though we did have an issue with the fuel pump right at the finish line, which caused the motor to lean out and that caused a bunch of problems inside the motor, but it really didn’t take too much out of our E. T. The question now is, how will it be on Saturday? Can the guys below us step up into the 4.70s with the sun on the track, and can we improve in those conditions? We’ll just have to see, I guess. Mike Ashley, Robert Hight, and a lot of other good cars are behind us, so it’s going to be very interesting. ”
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