It was 9 o’clock Wednesday morning in Texas and Steve Torrence sounded tired.

“We’ve been working hard . . . out at 5:30 a.m. and back home at 7:30 p.m.,” he said.  “We’ve been going strong and I’m a little worn out.”

Torrence’s regular job is working for his family’s oil and gas pipeline company, but he plans to take off Thursday to “relax at little” before reporting for duty at his other job – driving the Torrence Racing/Tuttle Motorsports Top Fuel dragster in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Nationals at Houston Raceway Park in Baytown, Texas.

It was 9 o’clock Wednesday morning in Texas and Steve Torrence sounded tired.

“We’ve been working hard . . . out at 5:30 a.m. and back home at 7:30 p.m.,” he said.  “We’ve been going strong and I’m a little worn out.”

Torrence’s regular job is working for his family’s oil and gas pipeline company, but he plans to take off Thursday to “relax at little” before reporting for duty at his other job – driving the Torrence Racing/Tuttle Motorsports Top Fuel dragster in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Nationals at Houston Raceway Park in Baytown, Texas.

“I couldn’t be more excited to be racing at Houston Raceway Park this weekend, because we will be back to two-lane racing,” said Torrence, of Kilgore, Texas.  “This is the first time I’ll be driving a Top Fuel dragster at Houston and there will be a lot of my friends coming who have never seen me race, and that motivates you a bit.  Hopefully, we’ll be back on our game.

“One of the benefits we have living in Texas is that we have two home-state races.”  The other is at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Sept. 24-26.

This will be Torrence’s third race in Texas in his 20-race (and counting) Top Fuel career.  The first two were at the Motorplex in 2008-09.

Torrence, who lost in the first round of the Inaugural Four-Wide Nationals at Charlotte two weeks ago, remained seventh in early Countdown to the Championship standings.

“Dexter (Tuttle, team owner and crew chief) continues to have a good handle on the tune-up,” noted Torrence.  “The car is running well, we’ve been qualifying in the top half of the field, and the crew has been doing a good job.”

Torrence’s best 2010 performance has been a semifinal finish at Phoenix.