{"id":62579,"date":"2019-06-03T10:38:08","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T17:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=62579"},"modified":"2019-06-03T10:38:08","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T17:38:08","slug":"torrence-continues-to-dominate-while-johnson-kramer-and-smith-earn-first-victories-of-the-season-at-route-66-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/torrence-continues-to-dominate-while-johnson-kramer-and-smith-earn-first-victories-of-the-season-at-route-66-nationals\/","title":{"rendered":"Torrence Continues to Dominate While Johnson, Kramer and Smith Earn First Victories of the Season at Route 66 Nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Torrence
Photos courtesy NHRA Media.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A thrilling weekend at this weekend\u2019s Route 66 NHRA Nationals would give the current king of Top Fuel his fourth straight win of the season. While 2018 Top Fuel champion Steve Torrence can apparently find his way to the winner’s circle blindfolded this season, three other drivers earned their first victories of the season at Route 66 Raceway. Despite 2017 Funny Car world champion Robert Hight earning the No. 1 qualifying spot for this weekend\u2019s race, Tommy Johnson Jr. won for the first time since 2017 when he and his Make-A-Wish Dodge drove past the former world champion in Sunday\u2019s final round. Pro Stock driver Deric Kramer also ended a winless drought that extends back to last year’s Brainerd event when he wheeled his American Ethanol Camaro to a final round win against Erica Enders. Reigning and three-time NHRA Mello Yello Pro Stock Motorcycle champion Matt Smith earned his first win of the 2019 season after taking down Karen Stoffer in Sunday\u2019s final round.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Top Fuel<\/h4>\n

\"Torrence<\/p>\n

Although Mike Salinas would earn the No. 1 Top Fuel qualifying position this weekend, the recent winner at Charlotte, Atlanta, and Richmond would once again regain his momentum on Sunday after taking down Richie Crampton and former world champion Antron Brown, who drove through a fiery explosion in his Matco Tools Top Fuel Dragster in Sunday\u2019s semifinal round, to battle Salinas in Sunday\u2019s final round. After a 3.763-second pass, combined with a .040-second reaction time, Torrence earned his fourth follow-up win of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be 22-4 in final rounds is a little surreal,\u201d said Torrence. “If you had asked me seven or eight years ago that I would have 31 wins I would have say that you are full of crap, but I have a really good group of guys who have all made this possible and I can\u2019t wait to see what else they can do this season.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Funny Car<\/h4>\n

\"Torrence<\/p>\n

While his competition in the 2018 Route 66 NHRA Nationals would end in a fiery explosion, Tommy Johnson Jr. finally found his way to the top on Sunday. After taking down Matt Hagan and John Force in Sunday\u2019s first two rounds, Johnson moved on to the final round against John Force teammate Robert Hight. After a quick take off it took more than four seconds for Johnson\u2019s Make-A-Wish Dodge to get to the finish line, but he got there quicker than Hight, who smoked the tires just past halftrack, to earn his first victory since 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is such a relief,\u201d said Johnson. \u201cWhen I beat Matt Hagan here, in 2015, he smoked the tires at the hit and when Robert did this yesterday it was such a load off. I can\u2019t thank my team enough for making this all happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pro Stock<\/h4>\n

\"Torrence<\/p>\n

Johnson wasn\u2019t the only driver to end a winless streak this weekend. Pro Stock Deric Kramer ended a winless streak that extends back to last year’s Brainerd event after taking down Matt Hartford and Alex Laughlin to take on Erica Enders in Sunday\u2019s final round. Although Enders put up one heck of a fight all weekend, this driver\u2019s final round would end in disappointment after fouling in the final round, which gave Kramer and his American Ethanol Camaro the win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis win is thanks to our not making any mistakes,\u201d said Kramer. “This has been our biggest problem this year and this weekend\u2019s perfect run proves that our team can still make things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pro Stock Motorcycle<\/h4>\n

\"Torrence<\/p>\n

Pro Stock Motorcycle driver Matt Smith also broke a season winless streak after taking down Eddie Krawiec and wife Angie Smith to take on Karen Stoffer in Sunday\u2019s final round. After giving a starting line advantage to Stoffer, Smith proved that not even a head start could stop him from repeating his 2006 victory over Stoffer in Englishtown thanks to his final round pass of 6.807-seconds.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur red rocket showed up this weekend,\u201d said Smith. \u201cWe made a little blooper in the second round, but overall we had the quickest bike in every round. I just can\u2019t say enough about my crew and my wife, Angie, and everyone who helps us. We needed to get a win, so we pulled out our championship engine that needs to be freshened after this race, and we will be ready to continue this success going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mello Yello Drag Racing Series continues at the Menards NHRA Heartland Nationals at Heartland Motorsports Park (June 7-9) in Topeka, KS. Stay tuned to RacingJunk.com<\/a> for all your NHRA coverage!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A thrilling weekend at this weekend\u2019s Route 66 NHRA Nationals would give the current king of Top Fuel his fourth straight win of the season.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":62585,"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":[3465,3470,5029,3399],"tags":[5974,2,1619,80,41,7,1632,6859,1942,956],"class_list":["post-62579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","category-nhra","tag-deric-kramer","tag-drag-racing","tag-ellen-richardson","tag-matt-smith","tag-news","tag-nhra","tag-racing","tag-route-66-raceway","tag-steve-torrence","tag-tommy-johnson-jr"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Route66_Winners-Circle-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-ghl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62579","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\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62579"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62588,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62579\/revisions\/62588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}