Although he has a resume that would be the envy of nearly everyone who ever has raced in the class, the native Texan from Kilgore never has won at Baytown.

With Steve Torrence's No. 1 qualifying performance early Saturday for the NHRA Mopar Express Lane Spring Nationals before a nasty wave of thunderstorms shut down action at Houston Raceway Park, the Capco Contractors Dragster driver is one step closer.

He set the bar in what turned out to be the lone qualifying session in the Lone Star State with a 3.727-second elapsed time at 326.48 mph on the 1,000-foot course.

That was enough to keep super-motivated Leah Pruett at bay. She took the No. 2 starting berth in her Pennzoil Dragster, clocking a 3.733-second pass and 312.86-mph speed.

“We sat there for 15 or so minutes, 20 minutes,” Torrence said, referring to the brief rain delay during qualifying. “You see Leah go out there and go a [3].73. And you’re hoping you can go out there and go that quick or a little quicker.”

While he might have felt the tenseness of the moment, he knew crew chiefs Richard Hogan and Bobby Lagana had it covered.

“Richard and Bobby, they make all the calls. I have no clue what’s going on. They tell me to just sit in there and drive it. So I stepped on the gas,” Torrence said.

“The thing went out there, and it rattled a little bit,” he said. “And I’m thinking, ‘It’s not going to make it! It’s not going to make it!’ And it kind of washed out and it clears up and goes. I looked up as I go through [the timing lights at the finish line] and see a [3].72 and I’m like, ‘Oh, man, that was close!’”

Particularly in situations like Saturday, with poor weather conditions imminent, Torrence said, “You’ve got to make every lap count. So when you go out there with the possibility of only getting one run and knowing in the back of your mind, watching the weather, you got to go A to B.

“So we really went out there and tried to make it count, see what we could get away with,” he said. “We had it loaded for bear to go back up there, but it didn’t present an opportunity. So I think that at the end of the day, sometimes – we were fortunate to be quick. But you’ve got to race smart to go out there and set yourself with a good position.”

Antron Brown, who’s finding his groove early this year, will start third in Sunday eliminations, after posting a 3.749-second run at 325.22 mph. Following Brown were Mike Salinas (3.755, 326.32) and Clay Millican (3.777, 302.89). Those top five were the only racers to score three-second elapsed times Saturday.

Every Top Fuel entrant earned a spot on the ladder, for the field is two short of a full 16-car field.

Torrence has flirted with winning, all right. In six of his previous nine appearances here, Torrence and his Capco Contractors Dragster have performed well.  He has been No. 1 qualifier three times. And he reached the finals on as many occasions, first losing to Doug Kalitta on a hole shot in 2016 (3.810 seconds to Kalitta’s slightly slower 3.813), then finishing runner-up to Leah Pruett (3.789 to her 3.781) the next season. Last year, when the Spring Nationals took place in late October, eight-time series champion Tony Schumacher returned from the sidelines and in the final edged Torrence by two-thousandth of a second.

“We know we have a car that can win here.  We just have to get the job done,” Torrence said.

He didn’t necessarily express that he felt pressure because he’s racing in front of friends and family and Capco employees. But they motivate him to break that Houston “jinx.”

He said the Capco employees are the ones “who make it possible for us to do what we love. Taya Kyle and the folks at the Chris Kyle Frog Foundation usually have a presence, too.  You really want to do well for all of them, so that just adds to the frustration, I think.”

Curiously, Torrence has lost to eight different opponents at Houston: twice to Morgan Lucas, Antron Brown, and Leah Pruett and once each to Spencer Massey, Khalid alBalooshi, Clay Millican, Doug Kalitta, and Tony Schumacher.  

Torrence, the three-time and reigning champion, has won 33 of the past 81 Top Fuel races he has run (along with major races, the Traxxas Nitro Shootout, and the other event in his home state, at Texas Motorplex at Ennis). And he has reached the final at three of four events this season. Last Sunday at Charlotte, he completed a sweep of the Camping World Drag Racing Series’ two four-wide spectacles and became Top Fuel’s first two-time winner this season.