Most NHRA Top Fop Fuel drivers would be satisfied with being fifth in the points standings with four races to go in the season.
Steve Torrence isn’t most drivers.

Torrence has won four Top Fuel world championships in a row and kept his chance for No. 5 alive by winning Midwest Nationals at World Wide Technology Raceway in St. Louis Sunday.

Torrence clocked a 3.741-second elapsed time at 328.70 mph to edge Josh Hart’s 3.749-second time at 329.67 lap.

“Josh is very predictable on what he does on the tree,” Torrence said. “I had in my mind to be prepared for he didn’t want to go first, and he doesn’t hold you out or anything; he just doesn’t like to go first. I went in. I stole a little bit. The car probably ran a little quicker than it did. I’m thinking maybe a hundredth and a half or two. But that .027 (on the tree), none of us are Justin Ashley. That guy pulls out [.0]27s all the time. For my old butt to do it, I was proud of that one. Then I think Josh rolled his into, he was [.0] 48, but that’s what you do.

“In the final round, it’s time to race. It’s time to get it done. It’s time to just go up there and try to get the win light. A huge shot in the arm for the Capco boys. This has not been our best season. We’ve struggled self-inflicted. We’ve struggled with some things throughout this year. The Countdown is what it is, but it’s a difficult pill to swallow, especially for Brittany (Force) because she’s had the most dominant race car all year. I acknowledge that with her. They’re not doing as well as they were, but they’re still not out of this by any means. We’re back in the middle of it and I didn’t expect this to be a situation for us, not as close as it’s going to be.”

With his win, Torrence moved up to second in the points, only 14 points behind leader Ashley. 

“This is going to be an all-out, brawl dogfight to the end because you got some of the baddest hot rods in the country that are going head-to-head right now, and it’s tight,” Torrence said. “Everybody can run .65, .67, .68. That’s what it’s going to take to win this thing. You got to be on the wheel to drive it. It’s going to be a tough, hard-fought battle all the way to the end.”

This was Torrence’s second victory of the season – he also won in Brainerd; Minn. Torrence also won in St. Louis from the No. 1 qualifying position with his 3.655-second run at 327.43 mph on Friday night.
Torrence now has 53 career wins and four in St. Louis. On Sunday, he defeated Buddy Hull, Clay Millican, Doug Kalitta and Hart.

“Going up every round was a big round for us,” Torrence said. “Going up there against Clay on the second round, I thought I lost. You never saw the light all day. You go around the corner, and I’m wondering if I won or lost. I felt like he was ahead of me. I watched him the whole way. I knew I was late. I’m thinking I lost on a holeshot. I’m going to have to deal with this crap for a whole week and a half. Then I come around the corner, and they’re wheeling me towards the TV. I’m like, ‘Well, here goes one of these; this is insult to injury because now I’m going to have to explain my holeshot loss.’

“I get out, and I’m walking over to Clay, and I’m like, ‘Hey, man. I’m sorry. I was dead late.’ He goes, ‘My stuff blew up right before the finish line.” I’m like, “I won?” He goes, ‘Yeah.’ Then I got happy about it. The third round against Doug was just a good race. You go up there, and I think I flickered the bulb no less than ten times. It never would lock on. Finally, I just said, ‘I’m going to bump in one more little bump and see if I can get it on.’ Then just a good drag race because they smoked the tires, but they were going for it. I mean, you have to. In these situations, everybody in the semis had run 76 the round before from 76.0 to 76.7 or 76.8.”

Torrence acknowledged that St. Louis has been a good fit for him.

“We’ve run well here,” Torrence said. “I remember one race, in particular, we were in the .60s all day, .67 and .68 in four rounds. This is a great facility. The track prep has been impeccable. I think, honestly, we had an opportunity to run quicker in Q3 than we did in the first qualifying session. The track was that good. (Sunday) things were a little different, but there was more sun on the track, and there was a little more heat in it. It came into a finesse round where some of these guys just finessed them down through there. As drivers, we had to keep it in the groove and keep it straight because there’s zero room for error. It just is what it takes to get a win in one of these. You’ve got to have some luck as well. We got away with one or two today that we probably didn’t earn, but we had luck on our side.”

No matter how Torrence got the Wally Sunday, he wasn’t apologizing or taking anything for granted.

“You have to capitalize on every opportunity,” Torrence said. “I think we’ve capitalized here before where we were able to extend our points lead. (Sunday) we were able to close that gap and try to get closer. Somebody just told me we were 14 points out, but there’s a lot of cars that are bunched up in there really tight. The one thing is some of these tuners, and some of these drivers have won championships, and some of them haven’t. I think that is an influencing factor as to how you race. We’ll see. The cream rises to the top. I’m not saying where the cream, but we’ve definitely been in these situations where we have experience, and that happens to be a benefit for us and some of the other teams that we’re racing against as well. It’s hard to be a battle-hardened warrior if you’ve never been in (the) battle.”

As frustrating as the 2022 season has been for Torrence and his Capco team he believes Sunday will be a crucial moment in his campaign.
“This is probably a turning point in our season definitely to get the ball rolling in the right direction, but there have been so many things that have led to this point,” Torrence said. “It goes back to 2017 and the trials and tribulations and struggles and trials and failures that we’ve had as a team to get us to this point. Being able to just sometimes you got to keep your head down and work and not look up and not be distracted by the things that are going on outside of you and around you because it’s easy to.

“If you’re not looking at the finish line, you’ll drive to whatever you’re looking at. That’s the same thing that you got to do when you’re trying to win. You get to focus on you and what you’re doing and not worry about cars going out or points or what they are because the points at the end of the day are going to count themselves. I’ve said this time and time again if you just win them all, you don’t have to worry about it. We haven’t done that, but we have before, and we’re going to try to do it again. We just need to stay focused on the task. That’s trying to win every round that we go up there and hopefully; we can leave here with a championship.”

The national NHRA schedule will have a week off before returning for the Texas FallNationals at the Motorplex in Dallas, Oct. 13-16. The final two races in the season are in Las Vegas, Oct. 27-30, and Pomona, Calif., Nov. 10-13.

“Oh, man. It’s going to be fun, kind of because of everybody from Capco and all my friends and family and everything. I mean, Dallas is a great racetrack for us,” Torrence said. “We’ve done well there in the past, but you have a lot of people that you haven’t seen all-year long, a lot of people rooting for you. We’re going to go there with a lot of support. I know that it’s going to be a big weekend for us, but I’m thankful that we have some time off. This has been a three-race swing. It’s been hectic. We’re going to get a weekend off. Then we’ll roll into Dallas, ready to go. Billy Meyer and all the people at the Texas Motorplex have done a great job with that facility. I look forward to going there and running well. The one thing we may have to battle with is heat. This has been very nice. This has been a great place to be. 50s in the mornings, or whatever it is. We won’t be that cool until December at home, but I look forward to it. I like to race there. It’s just a fun place for us.”