TORRENCE EDGING CLOSER TO VICTORY
Four-time World Champ Rides Momentum into FLAV-R-PAC Northwest Nationals
SEATTLE, Wash. – Although he is one of the few touring pros to have won every event in the Camping World series at least one time, Steve Torrence admits that there are NHRA venues at which he feels a little more comfortable than he does at Pacific Raceways, site this week of the 34th FLAV-R-PAC Northwest Nationals.
Team CAPCO at the FLAV-R-PAC Nationals
STEVE TORRENCE
Total appearances: 11
Final rounds: 3
Victories: 1 (2012)
No. 1 qualifier: 1 (2018)
Won-Lost record: 16-10
Noteworthy: Steve hasn’t won at Seattle since 2012, his longest active winless streak at any track in the Camping World series
Quickest time: 3.695 seconds, Aug. 7, 2016
Fastest speed: 331.61 mph, Aug. 3, 2018
Track records – 3.685 seconds by Antron Brown, Aug. 7, 2016; 332.43 mph by Brittany Force, July 31, 2022.
In point of fact, the four-time world champion has gone longer without a win in the Northwest Nationals than he has at any other event in the series. His one and only success at Pacific Raceways came 11 years ago when he beat Shawn Langdon to the finish to win for just the third win of his then brief pro career.
Fifty tour victories later, the 40-year-old cancer survivor is hoping to add a second “dubbya” to his Seattle resume and keep alive his hopes of winning the largely ceremonial regular season championship for a record fifth time.
Winless so far this season, a streak that extends to October of 2022 when he prevailed in the NHRA Midwest Nationals at St. Louis, Torrence nonetheless is brimming with confidence entering the second stop on a Western Swing that concludes next week at Sonoma, Calif.
“We’re so close (to putting all the elements together),” said the driver of the CAPCO Contractors Top Fuel Toyota, the only driver ever to have swept the races in the NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship (2018), “but we just haven’t been able to close the deal. Every week, I think, ‘this is the week.’ Well, here we are and I’m thinking ‘this is the week’ again.”
The Texas cattle rancher and businessman enters the season’s 11th race trailing Justin Ashley by 54 points after beating the point leader in the first round of last week’s Dodge Mile-High Nationals at Denver, Colo. And even though he and his CAPCO boys haven’t yet celebrated a 2023, they led the points after five of the first six races and have maintained a Top 3 presence all season long.
Nevertheless, before he focuses his full attention on the Northwest Nationals, the 53-time tour winner will race Saturday in the Mission Foods 2Fast/2Tasty Challenge which features semifinalists from the preceding tour event.
Photos by Mark Rebilas
Steve Torrence, left, shares a moment with Tony Schumacher, the eight-time World Champion and last year's winner of the FLAV-R-PAC Nationals at Seattle, Wash. Torrence, the four-time series champ, will try this week to supplant his arch rival and return his CAPCO Contractors dragster to the Seattle winner's circle for the first time since 2012.In one match, Torrence and his CAPCO Contractors Top Fuel Toyota will get a rematch with Doug Kalitta and his MAC Tools entry, to whom they lost in Denver by a scant .018 of a second. The other 2Fast/2Tasty semifinal will send Denver winner Clay Millican against Langdon.
The survivors will race for a $10,000 top prize as the last two down the racetrack on Saturday. In addition to the cash, three of the four 2Fast/2Tasty participants (winner, runner-up and losing semifinalist with the quickest time) earn bonus points that will be applied to their totals when points are adjusted for the Countdown.
Qualifying begins with a single nitro session at 6:30 p.m., Texas time, on Friday. The pro fields will be set in the two Saturday sessions, one at 4:15 p.m. and the other at 6:45 p.m., Texas time. Racing in the 2Fast/2Tasty Challenge will follow each of those Saturday sessions. Eliminations in the FLAV-R-PAC Nationals begin at 12:30 p.m., Texas time, on Sunday.
On TV (subject to change)
Qualifying highlights, 2-3 pm, ET, Saturday on FS1.
Final qualifying, 1:30-3:30 pm, ET, Sunday on FS1
Eliminations, 4-7 pm, ET, Sunday on FOX broadcast network.
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