Jeff Arend knows his
role and didn’t see the need to reaffirm it with his boss. His role on the
two-car CSK Auto Parts team was to put the car that had the best chance of
winning a berth in the playoffs into the next round.
Arend was eliminated from contention prior to the
event but teammate Del Worsham had a realistic mathematical shot when Jim Head
was eliminated in the first round.
Arend and their crew decided that Worsham needed to
have the best chance to go the distance. That’s why he waited a full two
seconds to leave the starting line at the green light.
"Personally, I think we'd have to be the
dumbest people in the world to let one Checker, Schuck's, Kragen car, that has
absolutely no chance of making the post-season, take out the one
that still has a chance," Arend said. "We are one big team here, all
representing CSK
and all of our great sponsors, so we made the
decision on our side of the pit. Del
never asked, never even brought it up, but Marc Denner, Chris Cunningham, and I talked about what we
thought was the best thing to do, for the team and for our sponsors.