STEVE TORRENCE'S CREW WORKS HARD, PLAYS EVEN HARDER
The 1972 Miami Dolphins, the NFL team best known for a perfect season, had their no-name defense. Give Top Fuel racer Steve Torrence a time machine, and he'd be more than willing to put his tireless crew up against them.
Torrence's team works under very little fanfare, but as the 11-time Top Fuel winner, fanfare doesn't win races, a relentless work ethic and a fiery desire for perfection does.
"I put those guys, each and every one of them, up against any team out here," Torrence said. "They are, in my opinion, the best out here. They have continuity between each other. We’re a family, and that’s the way that we run this entire team. Everybody gets along.
"We do fight from time to time, and we may get mad at each other but it only lasts for a little bit before we go back to racing to keep business at hand. Somebody said, three or four races ago that I’m kind of the outlaw and I said well the rest of these guys are outlaws too. We’re just a whole bunch of outlaws running around and wreaking havoc on some of these teams. We’re having a good time doing it."
They work hard, and they play hard as evidenced by a post-race golf-cart wheelstand through the Raceway Park pits, which would have made even the most seasoned wheelstander pilot envious.
"I might have been the guy running the camera," Torrence said with a smile. "And then I might not have been. I don’t want to incriminate myself, but I’ve said this many times before, we race with passion. We enjoy what we’re doing. We’re out here to have fun. We’re out here to win. When we win we celebrate. When we don't we ’go home and figure out how we can win."