Probably I do not know your specific problem, but your regex seems to be an overkill, a simple split is not sufficient for you? 
my $str = 'somename   1000  0.24  280  2 2576.9  2731.9  12.0  4195.3'
+;
my @array = split /\s+/, $str;

[download]

update: It seems to me you have two goals: to verify the format of your input and to split it to fields. I think it is much more readable in two separate steps: 

die "invalid input format: '$str'"
  if $str !~ / \A [a-z]\w* (?: \s+ [\d.]+ ){8} \z /ixo;
my @array = split /\s+/, $str;

[download]

In reply to Re: Question: Capturing a repeated pattern by rubasov
in thread Question: Capturing a repeated pattern by robmderrick

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