{"id":24630,"date":"2016-02-26T13:33:09","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T21:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=24630"},"modified":"2018-08-16T12:37:46","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T19:37:46","slug":"torrence-tearing-up-the-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/torrence-tearing-up-the-track\/","title":{"rendered":"Torrence Tearing Up the Track"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Steve<\/a><\/p>\n

Top Fuel driver, Steve Torrence was feeling a sense of relief after winning the season-opening NHRA Circle K Winternationals at the Auto Club Raceway at Pomona. The smile on Torrence\u2019s face in victory lane represented that his CAPCO, Inc. \/ Rio Ammunition team was picking up right up from where they left off from last season. Which was the most important thing that was on his mind after seeing the win light.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a huge step in the right direction,\u201d said a happy Torrence. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a breath of fresh air from the year\u2019s past. Our Pomona performance hasn\u2019t been all that stellar. It\u2019s a huge vote of confidence going into the season with a car that you know was dominate in the opening race, through qualifying, and through eliminations. It\u2019s just a testament to the hard work and effort the guys have put in during the off-season. You know we ran well at last year\u2019s Finals and to come back out at the Winternationals and to have a good car like that was just, just unbelievable. I thank Richard Hogan (crew chief), Alan Johnson (team advisor) and Bobby Lagana (assistant crew chief). All those guys worked their tails off to get it there and I\u2019m glad that\u2019s it showing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"nhra-0201216-1501\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Just qualifying alone was enough of a dogfight to give teams some comparable insight against their competition. Torrence reeled off some mid 3.70 runs in the early rounds but saved his best for the last session on Saturday running the eighth quickest elapsed time in the history of the sport to take the No. 1 qualifying position at Pomona with an elite 3.703-second pass. \u201cIf qualifying is any indication of what the season is going to be like, we\u2019re up for the most competitive season, yet,\u201d stated Torrence. \u201cThe parody of the class is right there and everybody is really strong. To be able to run at the top of the pack was gratifying, but it\u2019s going to be a tough season. We were 3.70, Kalitta 3.71 and there was a handful of 3.72s and 3.73s stacked on top of us. It\u2019s going to be tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Torrence will be quick to tell you that he\u2019s in charge of the driving part of it, but will share his appreciation of his team headed by Richard Hogan and Bobby Lagana. With the advice of veteran tuner, Alan Johnson as Torrence would say \u2018puts a thorn in Hogan\u2019s side to get him to push the tune up a little further over the Pomona weekend.
\n\u201cThat really is the scenario right there,\u201d said the six-time Top Fuel winner. \u201cWe haven\u2019t changed anything since Alan has come on board. We have run AJP parts from day one. We didn\u2019t change anything, didn\u2019t change the tune-up either. We have become just a lot more aggressive. That\u2019s what Alan has done. He gives Richard a little sense of confidence and pushes him to that next level. That started to show at the end of the season last year. I think we went 3.71 at the Finals, which was then a career best for me. When we left there, we had one of the most dominant race cars at the end of the season. So, when we came back out, we continued to pick up right where we left off. The chemistry between those two is even better this year. You had in the offseason a lot of phone calls and communication going between them. It\u2019s basically is that exact scenario when Alan has that little guy on his shoulder that’s said to him, go a little more, go a little more and it\u2019s paying off.\u201d Of course, knowing what\u2019s behind you in the engine department when it\u2019s working so well only builds Torrence\u2019s driving trust in his car. Now he can focus on leaving a little quicker than the other lane and clearly focus on his upcoming round.<\/p>\n

\"009-SteveTorrence-Sunday-Pomona1[1]\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go up there every lap, go down the track, and you don\u2019t smoke the tires, and the car is running fast just adds a lot of confidence,\u201d said Torrence. \u201cYou go up for race day and it just continues to build. It\u2019s like stacking cards, you get more and more on top of each other and you just keep going. As the consistency of the car picks up and the performance picks up my driving picks up also. I\u2019m looking forward to it and feel I have a pretty confident attitude going into Phoenix. We\u2019re still humble, but that\u2019s what NHRA Drag Racing does to you. It\u2019ll take you from hero to zero real quick and all we can do is the best we can.\u201d
\nNormally, with that kind of confidence could have a team sitting back enjoying their laurels, but that isn\u2019t slowing the CAPCO, Inc team down for a moment after the onslaught on the National ET Record being assaulted weekend after weekend last year; Torrence feels certain teams, including his, will go quicker in 2016.
\n\u201cHey, there was a handful of them running that last year and at Brainerd, (Shawn) Langdon went 3.66 right beside me and I had a front row seat to that. I went 3.73 or something and felt like my car was broke. I think there\u2019s a potential for that. We went 3.70 flat in the opening race of the season. I think we can build on that and the other teams will as well.\u201d
\nA new rule change for all the professional categories in 2016 now states that a National Record can be set on only one pass rather than a one per cent back up to make it official and the 20 bonus points for the feat has been eliminated.<\/p>\n

\"nhra-0201316-1194\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI got asked that question a couple of times at Pomona and I\u2019ll give you the same answer I gave them,\u201d said Torrence. \u201cBefore I never really had to worry about it because I wasn\u2019t ever the quickest, so we didn\u2019t have to be concerned about setting a National Record then. Now that I feel, we\u2019re at that level. I wish we could do something with those 20 points because there\u2019s no incentive to go out and go quicker than a 3.68 right now. You can get bragging rights. You don\u2019t get anything for it. It was pretty interesting last year to see how much those 20 points came into play. Of course, there were a couple of changes over there in Funny Car making them run quicker and quicker. I would kind of like to see that setting a record would carry some weight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"tra02B_2223\"<\/a>
\nNow the NHRA Mello Yello series moves on to Phoenix this weekend for the season\u2019s second race, the CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals at the Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park this Sunday and how does Torrence feel about his chances this weekend going into the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the only guy in Top Fuel in 2016 to hold up a golden man right now,\u201d Torrence said gleefully. \u201cHopefully, we can keep it that way. We were out there during the Phoenix test and the cars kept getting quicker, quicker, and quicker. We left before it got real good on Friday afternoon. Those cars are running great and I\u2019m looking forward to it. It\u2019s going to be abnormally hot for the conditions that we are going to see in February and different from anything we\u2019ve seen in the past, I think.\u201d The NHRA CARQUEST Auto Parts Nationals can be seen on FOX Sports 1 on Saturday, February 27, at 10 p.m. EST for qualifying highlights. The race will be shown LIVE on Sunday, February 28, starting at 5 p.m. EST.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steve Torrence was feeling a sense of relief after winning the season-opening NHRA Circle K Winternationals .<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3470,3399],"tags":[3945,2,7,171,1925,4129],"class_list":["post-24630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-nhra","tag-2016-nhra-mello-yello-series","tag-drag-racing","tag-nhra","tag-pomona","tag-steve-torrance","tag-str"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/005-SteveTorrence-Pomona1-e1456522381999.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-6pg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24630"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24641,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24630\/revisions\/24641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}