One of the juiciest storylines in this year’s Top Fuel class will be the inevitable comparison of the performances from reigning champion Steve Torrence and eight-time champ and decade-long class commander Tony Schumacher, who’s returning to a fulltime schedule for the first time since 2018.

That’s especially true after Torrence – still enjoying the shine last November from his fourth consecutive title – teased about Schumacher, “I’m going to tell him, ‘You left, and I’m the sheriff now.’”
 
To that Schumacher laughed and said, “That's what makes our sport so awesome, man. I think we've had good battles. It makes it fun, man. He’s gone on and tried to take what I had. And unfortunately, I wasn't here to stop him. So now we are.
 
“And he's going to have a couple of years’ advantage on me, but at the end of the day, I think the fans are the ones that win because this is what they keep asking for, he said. “I'll be out there.
 
“And look,” Schumacher said, “we can blow smoke up both our asses and tell us we’re the two sheriffs or whatever. But there are some bad-to-the-bone cars out here. I sure don't want to be the one talking smack, looking around at the group. We got an epic battle ahead of us this year. We'll all stay humble till the end of the year, because this is going to be one for the freaking books.”
 
Torrence today is taking his own tongue-in-cheek remark from November with a grain of salt.

He said, “Tony’s a great driver. You don’t get to be an eight-time champion by not being [great]. Just because he’s been out of the seat, you can’t take him lightly. We’ll do the best we can. We do what we do, and we don’t worry about the rest.”
 
He said (and understandably so), “I think that the media’s trying to hype this up as it’s a different deal than it was. And it’s really not. Right now, you just don’t have anything else to talk about.

“Ultimately, we’ve got to go out and do the same thing we’ve done and execute with the car and me drive well, and the rest will take care of itself,” Torrence said.

“I love driving these things. I love racin’. I enjoyed the time off, but I’m looking forward to getting back in it and racin’ and just having a good time. We do this as a family, and we do it for fun. We brought on Toyota, which is another feather in our cap as far as some data acquisition for the racetrack. I’m just really looking forward to this year. I think it’ll be a lot of fun and we’ll have a good time.”

OK – for those who can’t help themselves and want some comparative statistics . . . Torrence became the first in 13 years, since Schumacher in 2008, to win at least half the races on the Camping World Drag Racing Series tour. During Schumacher’s run of six straight titles, he won 77.6 percent of his individual races (312-90). Torrence has won 81.7 percent of the time in the past five years (263-59). Torrence joins Schumacher, the class all-time leader with 85 trophies and eight championships, on the title-streak list along with Don Prudhomme, Kenny Bernstein, Lee Shepherd, Bob Glidden, and John Force.