Steve Torrence said Sunday at Englishtown, N.J., he wanted to take advantage of the fact Top Fuel points leader Doug Kalitta and No. 2 Antron Brown had dropped out in the quarterfinals of the NHRA Summernationals.

But the day’s decidedly hotter temperatures and breezy conditions left him uncertain what Old Bridge Township Raceway Park’s 1,000-foot course would throw at him and his Capco Contractors/Rio Ammunition Dragster. After all, he had advanced a couple of rounds despite tire-smoking and throttle-feathering. “Crazy day – two rounds on pedaling,” he said after his victories over JR Todd and Brittany Force.

And that pitted him against fellow Texas resident Tony Schumacher. As much as Torrence wanted to vault back to the points lead he had after winning the season-opening Winternationals, he knew Schumacher wanted as intensely to earn his first victory of the year and first since last summer at Chicago.

Sure enough, he once again had to pedal his way down the course where he won in 2012. And his 4.037-second elapsed time at 281.71 mph – substandard compared to his recent performances – was more than enough. Schumacher, battling traction problems and what appeared to be other mechanical issues, countered with a 4.234, 268.28 in the U.S. Army Dragster.

“This was a tough race today,” Torrence said, citing “smokin’ tires, a pedalfest, down there at the end my car shuts off before the finish line, I could tell it had holes out, it wasn’t wantin’ to go anywhere, the belt knocks off and I’m trying to stick my foot out and Flintstone it to get to the end. But somehow we squeaked ahead of Schumacher.”

Making his second consecutive final-round appearance in a six-day span, Torrence earned his seventh career victory and second of the year in four finals. (He was runner-up at Houston and Epping, N.H.) He remains third in the standings, although he has trimmed his deficit from 127 points behind Kalitta to 65 and moved to within 16 points of Brown.

“We’ve been so fortunate and blessed. We have a race car that has been impeccable so far. The only faults have been me – last weekend we could have won that race and didn’t. We’re going to count our blessings and keep going, because the Good Lord has equipped us with way too many tools to go out here and do what we’re doing. We’re just going to keep giving Him the glory and trying to go some rounds.”

He’ll have a chance again another five days, as Mello Yello Drag Racing Series competition continues with the Thunder Valley Nationals at Tennessee’s Bristol Dragway.

But at Englishtown, Torrence was perhaps more elated for his car chief, Bobby Lagana, a popular Raceway Park near-fixture from nearby Scarsdale, N.Y. He also was thrilled for Dom Lagana, Bobby’s brother, who raced their family dragster this weekend but returned as a crew-hand once he dropped out of eliminations in the quarterfinals.    

“Those guys have a lot of history here. This is home for them. So to leave here with a Wally . . . [Lagana brothers] Bobby and Dom have won at their home racetrack. Dom did a great job this weekend in his race car, then they rolled over and helped us after they got beat. Torrence Racing is family . . . and Bobby and Dom are family to me. So I’m proud to have contributed to this win and get it for them.”   

For Torrence, point-counting is not part of his routine yet. “It’s too early to start counting points and worrying about all that. But you do want to try to distance yourself as much as possible [from the field behind in the standings] and catch up to the guys ahead of you. Those last six [races] are what really count. You need to be in good position.

“I’ve got the best race car I’ve had since 2005, when I was in an alcohol car,” he said, referring to his Top Alcohol Dragster national championship that year. “My confidence today and last weekend and every race we go to is getting better and better [and I’m getting] more comfortable in the car. When you have a car like that, you go out and drive it and do well.”

His brain trust – which includes crew chief Richard Hogan, consultant Alan Johnson, and Lagana – gathered in the team lounge before the final round to strategize how they would approach racing in the right lane. Schumacher had lane choice and picked the left.

“The right lane has not been good all day,” Torrence said. “We got stuck over there, and we saw Schumacher go .84 [a winning 3.843-second E.T. in his semifinal victory over Shawn Langdon]. We knew that lane’s not going to hold an .84, but we need to go A to Band and not beat ourselves. We pulled a bunch of time out of it, slowed the flows way down. It didn’t like it – you could see it put holes out – but it was still going. It wasn’t spinning the tires.”

It worked.

Torrence said he could hear Schumacher when they launched and “I could tell he was right with me. I heard him slap it [the throttle] and I knew he had to pedal it. I never could see him coming back around. Luck has just been on our side the last couple of races. I don’t want to use all of it up, but every race you win you’ve got to have a little bit of luck on your side. If you get out here and win one of these things without that, it’s too difficult. The parity in this class is unbelievable right now.

“Those Schumacher cars, other than Antron’s, have not been performing as well as they have in the past,” Torrence  said. “We’ve got to try to keep ‘em whupped down, because when they get their steam going, they’re tough contenders and heard to deal with. We just need to keep beatin’ on ‘em.”

As he joined Ron Capps (Funny Car), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock), and Angelle Sampey (Pro Stock Motorcycle) in the winners circle, Torrence told the cheering crowd, “It’s a good day. It’s a good race. We’ve won here before. I like coming here. These fans are awesome.”

Despite the runner-up finish – or, more correctly, because of it – Schumacher leaped from ninth place in the standings to fifth.

Said Schumacher, “When you’re in the finals and you’re running against a team that’s won and running well, you’ve got to try to go fast. Talking to Torrence at the end, they knew they weren’t going to get down the track very well in that lane. They wanted to just get down there, and they ended up throwing the belt off there at the end and all we needed to do was just slide it through. With A.J. (Alan Johnson) tuning that car, a good car like that, you don’t want to get there and leave anything on the table. Still, we’ve got a good car. We’ve got a car that’s coming around.

“We’re very good at Bristol. Ironically, we did well this weekend at a track that we’ve never done well at, historically. This is not supposed to be our place. Bristol is. We’ll move on and we’ll get that win,” he said. “Does it hurt to get so close and not win the event? Well, I’ve not gotten it before. You have to earn it. There are facts and there are rules, and the rules state that you’ve got to get to the finish line first, and we didn’t do that. We play by the rules and that’s the way it goes.”

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