At Houston Raceway Park, Steve Torrence was like a Timex watch: He took a lickin’ and kept on tickin’.

But Monday afternoon at the Mopar Express Lane NHRA SpringNationals it was Torrence’s time.

Thanks to the financial complications of COVID, Robert Hight had to sit out of competition from the February 2020 race at Phoenix until the delayed first event of this year in March at Gainesville, Fla.

All he had won since the September 2019 race at Charlotte was a AAA promotional fan-popularity contest through the Internet over NASCAR’s Joey Logano – cool for him, but not the rush of winning four rounds of NHRA drag racing and holding another Wally trophy.

For Matt Hartford and his team, it could have been easy to get distracted during this weekend’s Mopar Express Lane NHRA SpringNationals at Baytown, Texas.

They could have concentrated on and complained about the rainstorms that forced cancellation midweek of Friday’s qualifying at Houston Raceway Park, constantly threatened Saturday’s lone day of Pro Stock qualifying, and washed out Sunday’s racing altogether in their class.

Point standings (top 10) following the 34th annual Mopar Express Lane NHRA SpringNationals presented by Pennzoil at Houston Raceway Park powered by Pennzoil, the fifth of 22 events in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series -

Final round-by-round results from the 34th annual Mopar Express Lane NHRA SpringNationals presented by Pennzoil at Houston Raceway Park powered by Pennzoil, the fifth of 22 events in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series:

Monday's final results from the 34th annual Mopar Express Lane NHRA SpringNationals presented by Pennzoil at Houston Raceway Park powered by Pennzoil. The race is the fifth of 22 in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series:
 

Monday's final results from the 34th annual Mopar Express Lane NHRA SpringNationals presented by Pennzoil at Houston Raceway Park powered by Pennzoil. The race is the fifth of 22 in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series:
 

Cruz Pedregon knows drag racing can be a wild roller-coaster ride, full of sudden peaks and valleys. And he experienced that this week. The Snap-on Tools Dodge driver was walking just a little taller all week long after recording a perfect reaction time (.000 seconds) during eliminations at Charlotte. But he came back down to Earth a bit early Saturday, as he caught the guardwall just before the finish line and had his run disqualified, with impending rainstorms threatening to wipe out a second and final session.

Silver Sport Transmissions, in conjunction with RAM Clutches, will serve as the title sponsorship of the September 25th Knoxville Tennessee event, ‘The SST Shootout presented by RAM Clutches’.

Silver Sport Transmissions (Rockford, TN) was founded by Jack Silver in 2014. Silver had just purchased a 5-speed PerfectFit™ Kit for his 1986 Chevrolet El Camino “Choo Choo” when he heard about the previous owner’s ‘issues’. After investigating how a company with such great products ended up declaring bankruptcy, Silver found no fault in the staff or products. He gathered some investors and brought the popular products back to market and hired back all the old employees.

 All the forethought in the world can go into preparing any racing vehicle, but occasionally, cars and crew do the darndest things.

At the NHRA Southern Nationals weeks ago, that was evident in drag racing’s premier divisions.

In Top Fuel, Clay Millican was KO’d in the first round of eliminations because his car couldn’t make a proper burnout. More on the reason why in a sec. Over in Funny Car, on consecutive days, the Funny Car campaigned by Alexis DeJoria was “timed out” because her entry couldn’t complete the staging process. More on that, too.