{"id":6406,"date":"2016-10-30T22:38:35","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T03:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=6406"},"modified":"2016-10-31T20:46:15","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T01:46:15","slug":"texas-drag-racer-steve-torrence-hits-jackpot-in-las-vegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/30\/texas-drag-racer-steve-torrence-hits-jackpot-in-las-vegas\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas drag racer Steve Torrence hits jackpot in Las Vegas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"To

To the victor go the spoils. Steve Torrence shows off the hardware he collected after winning Sunday’s 16th annual Toyota Nationals at Las Vegas. Photo by Mark Rebilas<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

LAS VEGAS, Nev. \u2013 Steve Torrence<\/strong> added an exclamation point to an already spectacular season Sunday with a flawless performance that propelled his Capco Contractors\/Rio Ammunition Top Fuel dragster to a statement win in the 16th<\/sup> annual Toyota Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

A final round victory over J.R. Todd pushed the 33-year-old Texan past Doug Kalitta and into second place in points behind Antron Brown who, by advancing to the semifinals, clinched his second straight Mello Yello championship and third in five years.<\/p>\n

\"Steve

Steve Torrence, foreground, celebrates in the winners’ circle after the 16th annual Toyota Nationals along with fellow inner John Force, back right. Photo by Mark Rebilas<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe goal always is to win the championship,\u201d Torrence said, \u201cbut if you can\u2019t do that, then you want to finish as high as you can.\u00a0 Second place would be huge but it\u2019s way too early to celebrate.\u00a0 There\u2019s one more race (the 52nd<\/sup> annual Auto Club of Southern California Finals at Pomona, Calif.) and our plan is to go win that one, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a banner season for Torrence, who already has set personal single season records for final rounds (8), No. 1 starts (8) and rounds won (34).\u00a0 Significantly, Sunday\u2019s win also enabled him to even his career record in the Top Fuel division at 153-153.<\/p>\n

Those are remarkable numbers, especially when one considers the fact that he was only 24-46 with no final round appearances when he decided in 2012 to form his own team.\u00a0 Since doing so, he has won eight times and finished in the Top 10 every season.<\/p>\n

\"Steve

Steve Torrence drives the “Breast Cancer Awareness” version of the Capco Contractors\/Rio Ammunition Top Fuel dragster to victory Sunday in the 16th annual Toyota Nationals at Las Vegas. Photo by Mark Rebilas<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWe made a really good first (qualifying) run and that gave (crew chief Richard) Hogan a baseline.\u00a0 He made great calls on Sunday.\u00a0 We were quickest in every round but the second.\u00a0 The only guy who could screw it up was me.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t about to do that today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Torrence stopped Aussie nemesis Richie Crampton in round one but had to run quick time of the round (3.730) to do so.\u00a0 In round two, the margin over Kalitta was a scant .002 of a second.\u00a0 A .047 of a second starting line advantage was the difference against Leah Pritchett in the semifinals.\u00a0 Against Todd, he again was the first to react and his 3.734 was more than enough to cover Todd\u2019s 3.762.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s performance was particularly impressive considering the fact that the cancer survivor never before had gone beyond the second round at the Toyota Nationals.\u00a0 Apparently, his Vegas luck finally has changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty gratifying to be a family race team out here running against the big dogs,\u201d said the 2005 NHRA champion in the Top Alcohol Dragster division.\u00a0 \u201cOur goal when we formed this team in 2012 was to compete for the championship.\u00a0 The only thing left now is to come back and win the championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  LAS VEGAS, Nev. \u2013 Steve Torrence added an exclamation point to an already spectacular season Sunday with a flawless performance that propelled his Capco Contractors\/Rio Ammunition Top Fuel dragster to a statement win in the 16th annual Toyota Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. A final round victory over J.R. Todd […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[129,6,50,334],"class_list":["post-6406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhra","tag-las-vegas","tag-nhra","tag-steve-torrence","tag-the-strip-at-las-vegas-motor-speedway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/tra10Z_3076-1-e1477964661106.jpg?fit=625%2C433","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-1Fk","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6406"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6411,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6406\/revisions\/6411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}