Even before the NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship began three weeks ago at Reading, Pa., reigning Top Fuel champion Steve Torrence asked the most loaded question of all: “How’s it going to look if my dad goes out and wins the championship and he raced 16 of the 24 races?”

After Billy Torrence defeated his son Sunday in the all-Capco Dragster, all-in-the-family final round of the AAA Midwest Insurance Nationals at Madison, Ill., that scenario isn’t so far-fetched.

The fact that 10th-seeded Billy Torrence is in the Countdown at all might make the decision-makers at the NHRA scramble for a revised strategy quicker than the Kilgore, Texas, businessman’s winning 3.835-second elapsed time or faster than his 319.67-mph speed.

This third victory of the season for Billy Torrence reinforces Steve Torrence’s argument that the six-race sprint provides “zero incentive to go out and race all of the races and try to do well.” He said, “Ultimately, all you have to do is skate into the top 10 and race really hard for six.”

Steve Torrence, who Sunday chased his father down the 1,000-foot course at World Wide Technology Raceway with a 4.374-second E.T. at 195.93 mph, moved within two points of regaining the lead he lost at Reading to Doug Kalitta. Billy Torrence beat Kalitta in their key quarterfinal match-up.

“Doug’s a great driver, a good friend. That’s a great team. But I went out there and intended to kick his butt – and I did,” the winner said.

The final was a rematch of the Topeka showdown in which son trumped dad. But even before he could get his helmet off at the top end of the track, Billy Torrence was denying he was trying to pay back Steve for the previous outcome of their head-to-head races.

Steve Torrence, too, said racing against his dad or even battling him for a second straight Top Fuel title isn’t all that unusual: “Ultimately, we race to race. It’s a competition. Yeah, we’re family, but you’re going out there and doing the best you can, and we’re both as competitive as each other. Whether it’s my dad or Antron [contender Brown] or anybody else, I still want to win.”

And never mind the unique aspect of a father and son engaged in a championship battle. In 18 races, they hogged 10 victories in 14 different final rounds (counting Topeka as one final). And Billy Torrence started the Countdown with one of the class’ best race-day records at 20-8, despite competing in just 10 regular-season events. When Robert Hight earned the first of his two Funny Car championships in 2009, he gave every racer hope that it’s possible to enter the Countdown in 10th place and win the title. So a Billy Torrence championship is a genuine possibility.

Besides, well in advance of the Countdown kickoff, regular-season champion Steve Torrence pegged his dad as his stiffest competition: “That’s arguably the second-best car at the place, if not the best. If he raced all of them, it would be my main competition, I believe. I see him as the main competition. He’s driving very well. The car is running as good as ours, sometimes even a little bit better. So he’s going to be a threat.”

After Billy Torrence shared the winners circle with Shawn Langdon (Funny Car), Erica Enders (Pro Stock), and Karen Stoffer (Pro Stock Motorcycle), he said, “I’ve got to thank the good Lord for even letting us be here as a family and being able to do this like we do.”

He insisted that “I’m here by invitation only. This is [wife] Mama Kay’s race team. I’m a fulltime pipeliner and a part-time drag racer. It’s tough to come out here, work six or seven days a week and show up out here and drag race. These guys who do this day in and day out are the best. They’re at the pinnacle of drag racing here.  It’s pretty humbling to come out here and have this success.”

He said both he and his son stayed on task through qualifying, managed to stay on opposite sides of the bracket, and met in the final round as they had hoped. He said, “It came out better for me this time. But I think Steve pretty much owns me, like 60-0, but it’s good to get one over the kid every now and then.”

The final round represented a recovery for the Torrences, both of whom lost in the first round at the previous event. Billy Torrence said that they had been experimenting with various parts and set-ups because Steve’s abundant lead allowed the team to do so. But Billy reminded them all, “We might ought to go back and dance with the gal that brought us.” So they came to St. Louis with that original combination – “We hadn’t been preparing them identically, but we are now. We’re back to doing that,” he said. And the strategy paid off.

Along the way, they did a little trash-talking after the semifinal with Steve firing the most stinging salvo: “This is probably going to get me arrested for old-man abuse.” After he lost traction in the final run and didn’t back up his lip, Billy said that on their private-plane flight home “I’ll probably talk all the way.” (He did say Mama Kay won’t be refereeing any squabbles “because she’s on Steve’s side. There’ll be four of us in the plane, and I’m sitting by myself.”)   

While both Billy and Steve Torrence will be back home at Kilgore, Texas, at 6 o’clock Monday morning, continuing to lay pipe for Capco Contractors, their oil-and-gas-industry business (and only a treat at their favorite Mexican restaurant at nearby Tyler that night), talk about the Countdown will still be part of the buzz among drag-racing fans.

And the issue of the Countdown – and the points adjustment that wiped out Steve Torrence’s 558-point lead over No. 2 seed Kalitta – still sticks in the current champion’s craw. The points-and-a-half system at the U.S. Nationals also manipulated true performance, for Steve Torrence arrived at Indianapolis with a colossal 635-point advantage over then-second Brittany Force. (She dropped to fourth place after Reading but is back in second place in the standings as the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series moves to Charlotte for the Oct. 11-13 Carolina Nationals.)

Back in 2017, Steve Torrence referred to the Countdown as a “welfare points system” and “just a crock of crap” and expressed contempt for what he called “this bulls--- points system.” Two years later, he said he feels “no differently than I did in ’17” about the title-determining format.

“The problem that I have with the Countdown and the restructuring of the points,” he said, “is that when you do have a season that’s really good and you do really well, there’s zero incentive to go out and race all of the races and try to do well. Ultimately, all you have to do is skate into the top 10 and race really hard for six.

“I’ve been criticized by a lot of people and [some have] not really liked my opinion of it. But when you actually have a playoff system, that means that the people that don’t make the playoffs don’t compete and when you’re eliminated, you’re eliminated. It’s in no kind of way a playoff system.

“I don’t know – I mean, I have never benefitted from the Countdown points systems, so I’m probably going to be biased against it. I know that there’s some that have benefited from it. And I may be one of them this year that does. I may be one of them that doesn’t,” he said. “But we had [558-]point lead after Indy and it was cut down to 20. It’s somewhat of a bitter pill to swallow to say that everybody had the same opportunity for 18 races to earn those points and we had to throw them away. At the end of the day, it is what it is.”

What it is right now is a curious twist of events for the Top Fuel class that has seen the points lead change hands, Steve Torrence rebounded from a fall to third place back to within two points of the top spot, Kalitta hang on by a thread to his lead, and the Nos. 9- and 10-seeded drivers winning the first two Countdown races.

Billy Torrence’s initial description of the final four seconds of the weekend was “It’s crazy.”

So is the Top Fuel title chase so far. 

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