The struggles of Steve Torrence, the reigning four-time NHRA Top Fuel world champion, have been well documented during the 2022 season.

Torrence has yet to win a race this year, but there was no pushing of the panic button because it’s all part of a long-term plan.

Torrence took a small step toward the end goal – another world title – when he grabbed the provisional No. 1 qualifying spot at the Flav-R-Pac NHRA Northwest Nationals near Seattle.

Torrence clocked a 3.819-second elapsed time at 321.50 mph to take the top spot in his Capco-family-owned dragster.

“Just seeing what was going on out there, I was very pleased to just go A to B,” Torrence said. “That's the main focus that I think Richard (Hogan) and Bobby (Lagana) have is getting down the track and getting that information. 81, that's not indicative of the normal Top Fuel field, especially when Funny Cars are 86 for low. I didn't expect that to stay low, I expected (Mike) Salinas or Brittany (Force) to go around, but I'm happy with it. I think that gives us a good place to build off going Saturday. I doubt that stays low, but it's hot here. It's uncharacteristically hot. I landed at the airport today and the people were complaining about how hot it was and I was like, well, come to Texas for a day or two, you'll change your mind.”

If Torrence holds the No. 1 qualifying spot it will be the 34th of his career and third of the season. He also was the No. 1 qualifier in Houston and Epping, N.H.

“The fans are awesome and so appreciative for us to be here,” Torrence said. “We haven't been here in a while and the place will pack out. So, looking forward to that and you got to have that run to build off and that's really what we set ourselves up for today.”

Torrence’s championship-winning team has been working all season on a tune-up that will produce results in the six-race Countdown to the Championship. However, he was not ready to make any bold predictions about where the team is at.

“Any answer I can give you would be a lie,” Torrence said. “I have no clue and sometimes, I don't even know what I'm doing in the car. So, most of the time, I think that it's getting there. I see the consistency of the car. I see the confidence of Richard coming back, not that it went away, I just see that I know what he's trying to do, and I know what it's doing and it's aligning itself very closely, so I feel confident. We need to take this opportunity here to really concentrate on these hot weather setups and learn that and adapt that to the tune-up. We've had some glimmers of good conditions where the car can really go out and run hard and hasn't run as hard as what we thought it could. So, we're just picking away at it a little bit at a time and I mean, it's a difficult pill to swallow when you know how consistent and how dominant you've been, but you just chop it off at the knees and go back and try to rebuild it.

“I mean, we still have got a few more races left before we have to really kick it into gear.”

Torrence is still very much in the hunt for another world championship since points are reset in the Countdown.

Still, Torrence isn’t a big supporter of the Countdown format.

“I think the Countdown is total B.S. all the way, but hopefully this year I'll benefit from it,” he said. “There's been years in the past where at this point I've been 400 points ahead and we've thrown it away to a guy that didn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell and being a champ and got there. So maybe I'll be that snowball. You have to manipulate the system and play it to your advantage. And I'm not saying that we're manipulating anything, we're just taking the luxury that we've been given to go out and not be the most dominant car for most of the season and see if we can be the most dominant car for the last six races.

“You can ask any fighter or any boxer or anybody that competes, you go into something with a plan. You have to execute that plan all the way to the end. And even if it's not looking good for a little while, I mean, you have a plan and that's what you put into place and you put into motion to try to work and that's what we're doing.”