STEVE TORRENCE’S TRACK RECORD ET PUTS HIM ATOP QUALIFYING CHART AT EPPING

by Tracy Renck    Fri, 2022-06-03 19:55

 

So far in 2022, this has not been a Steve Torrence-like season in NHRA’s Camping Word Drag Racing Series.

Through seven races, Torrence, the reigning four-time Top Fuel world champion, has yet to win an event.

However, the Kilgore, Texas driver made a statement Friday at the New England Nationals in Epping.

He clocked a track-record 3.664-second elapsed time at 329.50 mph in Friday’s lone qualifying session to capture the No. 1 spot at New England Dragway.

“Super satisfying, extra, extra special for us,” Torrence said. “We've been working really hard at trying to get the car to run quicker, to run more mph. And we haven't really pinned it down just yet. So, to come here and go out in Q1 and be the only car that went down that lane and then set low ET and run the way that we did, that's a feel-good thing. That's something that we really needed to kind of just give ourselves a little boost in the arm.”

Although Torrence hasn’t visited the winner’s circle yet in 2022, it has not been a lost season. He arrived in the points standings in second place and has two runner-up finishes and three semifinal efforts.

“We haven’t won a race yet, and everybody's making a big deal about that,” Torrence said. “But we're still second in the points. And the car has run reasonably well, but just not where we have in the past. And so, we've found some things that we think are better and we're working on them. And we'll just see if they have the consistency that we are used to in what we want to have. But I think that, that was a huge boost of confidence for all the Capco boys and myself.”

If Torrence’s No. 1 qualifying positive holds it will be the 33rd of his career. The final two qualifying sessions are at 1:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. (ET) Saturday.

“Man, with the success that we've had over the last five years and the way the car has run, it's difficult to set that down,” Torrence said. “It's difficult to say, ‘Okay, well, we have worked so well and won four championships. But we need to do something different.’ And when you have an expectation of performance and you go out and it's not there week in and week out, it can be a little bit frustrating, and maybe a little disheartening but you know that it's for the greater good. And that's where we've been. So, I got all the faith in the world in Richard Hogan, Bobby Lagana, every one of those Capco boys. And you just got to trust that we are making the right decision.”

Torrence said that the season to date gave his team even more motivation for Epping.

“We came here loaded for bear,” Torrence said. “We thought the conditions would be like this. And it paid off. But we’ve only made one run. So, we need to see how Q2, Q3 and race day goes on Sunday, but we have a lot of confidence in the race car right now. And it did what we expected it to do. And that's one of the biggest things with the Top Fuel car is that it does what you want it to do. Sometimes, it'll throw you a bone and you go out there and run 66. But you have no clue why. And so, we're very pleased with that run right there and the way that things are trending for our performance.

“Man, I've been looking forward to every weekend as a get right weekend, but to come here and do well, you are confident when you come here, when we've had the success. I think I've won a couple times here. It's special to come here and do well. This place is very reminiscent to where I learned to drag race, where I grew up racing in Hallsville, Texas. So, I enjoy coming here. I enjoy listening to all the people because they probably enjoy listening to me talk. I like to hear them because I don't know anything they say.”

Considering Torrence’s success in Epping and the Lagana family’s rich history at the track made the team’s record run no big surprise.

“I'm the guy who just holds onto the steering wheel. Just I've been around this enough to know the numbers and know where we're at and just based off what was in the car, what I thought it might do,” Torrence said. “It's something that we've worked on for a long time to try to get that early ET. Now, we're trying to work on getting that back half speed. And that was a big step towards that. The thing left. Front wheels were up. You kind of want it to wash out just a little bit. And it didn't rattle the tire, but you could feel the tire wanting to go fast. And then, it set the front wheels down. And then, it's just to hang on because we're headed out the back door right now.

“So, it was running well. I knew it was hauling butt as soon as I stepped on the gas. And so, to go out there and run top speed, to run 3.29... Typically, you run faster when you're in 66, but we're creeping up on that a little bit. And to do it in the other lane, across from Brittany (Force) and they go the same speed at 3.68... And those guys have led the pack. They're the ones that have made us all have to get that speed out the back door. Because I mean, when they're going 335, 337, that mph down there really changes that back 340 feet. You can do the same as them to halftrack, but if they're running that much more speed, it changes the ET drastically. And so that's what we've been working on.”

Torrence said what his team is doing with the tuneup is a work in progress.

“We've been working on this a little while, but it's not that we have a whole backlog of information to go off of,” Torrence said. “I mean, with our other tune up, you got five years of it. And so, you can really dig into the files and say, ‘Okay, we did this. We did that.’ But we have a very limited amount of runs. So even though we are in that situation where we don't have a whole lot of history, it did what it wanted to do. So, you can go off that in every lap, where it's going to have to learn more. I mean, we've run what we've run for a long time. Now, you got to change. And to get better, this is the perfect time to learn it because these are conditions that we'll be racing in the end of the season during the Countdown. And these are fleeting and going away right now. I mean, it's trending towards hot weather and it's going to be summertime. So, we got to learn as much as we can as quick as possible.”

Torrence says his championship tune-up is lost information.

“No, no, no,” Torrence said. “I mean, discs change continuously. I mean, everybody's had the same fault as us, where you got to go and just get different disc. I mean, you can buy all the inventory up, but it still changes eventually. And so, I mean, we've, we've dealt through different situations where we've had discs that worked perfect. I mean, the disc pack that we had at 19 was one of the best disc packs we've ever had. And you kind of try to just gravitate towards that and find the replacements for that. That's something that we're very fortunate to be able to do is have a large inventory of clutch disc. But no, that hasn't really changed as far as what we're doing. And we could ultimately go back to that, but that tune-up is not a mid 60s and quicker tune-up. I mean, you see Brittany go out there and consistently go 66, 65, 64. And we couldn't get there. And no matter what we did, we couldn't get there. You go 67 and you just got to get there. You got to be able to do that.

“It comes down to not being able to run as fast out the back. You can run quicker to halftrack than them, but they just have that power and run out the back door. And at the end of the day, it's power. So, we've been working on that and doing a lot of stuff. And I mean, everybody out here is constantly changing. Everybody's trying to do something more. And we've had it figured out for so long that we didn't change. And now, you got to do something or get left behind.”

 

 
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