TORRENCE EYES RETURN TO ‘BEAST MODE’
Four-Time Champ Seeks Second Win in Four Years at NHRA Gatornationals
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Coming off a 2022 season in which he won fewer than three tour events for the first time in seven years, four-time series champion Steve Torrence is poised to return to “beast mode” this week when he drives a re-engineered Capco Contractors dragster in pursuit of the Top Fuel title in the 54th annual Amalie Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway.
“The longer you’re on top, the harder it is to stay there,” Torrence said of a 2022 season in which he slid to sixth place in points while crew chiefs Richard Hogan and Bobby Lagana Jr. transitioned to a new engine and clutch combination.
“They definitely earned (the championship), but now they’re the ones with the target on their backs.”
Photos by Mark Rebilas
Steve Torrence opens his bid for a fifth Camping World tour title this weekend at the wheel of a re-engineered Capco Contractors Top Fuel Toyota.
Zeroing in on that bullseye, Torrence and his “Capco Boys” will try to win the Gatornationals for the second time in four years.
When he won in 2020, the 39 year-old Texan did so at the wheel of a tribute car built to recall “Swamp Rat 14,” the dragster designed, driven and maintained by Florida legend “Big Daddy” Don Garlits, the car that changed the face of drag racing in the ‘70s as the first rear-engine winner on the NHRA tour.
Left photo: Steve Torrence tries to regain the form that made him the dominant driver on the NHRA Camping World from 2018 through 2021 as he seeks his fifth World Championship and his second win in four years in the NHRA Gatornationals. Right photo: Richard Hogan, left, and Bobby Lagana Jr. are the mechanical minds behind the success of four-time NHRA World Champion Steve Torrence and his Capco Contractors Top Fuel Toyota.
This time he’ll try to affect the same result without the Garlits’ influence in an event that always is a homecoming for Hogan, the Florida native whose dad, the late Charley “The King” Hogan, was a Garlits’ contemporary and one of his most formidable rivals.
Although he won but twice last year (after 43 victories the previous five seasons), Torrence was a top four driver throughout the regular season and still was in contention for a fifth title until first round losses in two of the last three events of the Countdown.
Before he launches his bid for a season-opening victory, though, he first will focus on successfully defending his title in the Pep Boys All-Star Call Out, a bonus race for touring pros contested in conjunction with Saturday qualifying. It offers up an $80,000 top prize independent of the Gatornationals purse.
A cancer survivor who prepped for his Top Fuel career by winning the NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster World Championship in 2005, Torrence has been the dominant pro driver on the Camping World over the last six seasons during which he has won almost twice as many events as any other driver, regardless of category.
Qualifying begins with nitro sessions at 1:30 p.m. and 4 p.m., Texas time, on Friday. Saturday’s first Top Fuel qualifying session will be followed at 12:20 p.m., Texas time, by the first round of the second Pep Boys All-Star Call Out with subsequent rounds at 2:45 and 4:25 pm, Texas time. Top Fuel first round is scheduled at 9 a.m., Texas time, Sunday.
About Toyota
Toyota (NYSE:TM), creator of the Prius hybrid and the Mirai fuel cell vehicle, is committed to building vehicles for the way people live through our Toyota and Lexus brands. The company directly employs more than 48,000 people in North America, more than 39,000 of them in the U.S. Over the past 65 years, Toyota has assembled nearly 45 million cars and trucks in North America at the company’s 13 manufacturing plants. By 2025, the company’s 14th plant in North Carolina will begin to manufacture automotive batteries for electrified vehicles.
Through our more than 1,800 North American dealerships (including nearly 1,500 in the U.S.), Toyota sold more than 2.4 million cars and trucks (more than 2.1 million in the U.S.) in 2022, of which, nearly one quarter were electrified vehicles (full battery, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell).
About CAPCO Contractors Inc.
Capco Contractors, Inc. is a family owned-and-operated construction company specializing in the oil and gas industries. A proud American company based in Texas with clients around the world, Capco was founded in 1995 by Billy Torrence and initially operated from a small office and one job-site trailer with a staff of only 12 employees. From those humble beginnings, Capco Contactors, Inc. has developed into a full-service pipeline company, capable of all aspects of pipeline work including site work, creation of compressor stations, mainline pipeline construction and pipeline integrity projects. It employs more than 200 people with main offices in Henderson, Texas.
