{"id":4239,"date":"2016-06-13T17:27:15","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T22:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=4239"},"modified":"2016-06-13T17:27:15","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T22:27:15","slug":"texas-drag-racer-steve-torrence-wins-nhra-summernationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2016\/06\/13\/texas-drag-racer-steve-torrence-wins-nhra-summernationals\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas drag racer Steve Torrence wins NHRA Summernationals"},"content":{"rendered":"

ENGLISHTOWN, N.J \u2013 Steve Torrence<\/strong> extended his all-or-nothing history at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park Sunday, applying an exclamation point to a wire-to-wire victory in the 47th<\/sup> annual NHRA Summernationals<\/a> by driving his Capco Contractors\/Rio Ammunition Top Fuel dragster past the U.S. Army hybrid of eight-time series champion Tony Schumacher in the final round.<\/p>\n

\"160-SteveTorrence-Sunday-Englishtown-celebration\"<\/p>\n

If the 33-year-old Texan\u2019s overpowering victory in the season-opening Circle K Winternationals at Pomona, Calif., was a study in perfection, Sunday epitomized the contrasting concept of \u201cwinning ugly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The normal problems of achieving maximum traction with a 10,000 horsepower race car were exacerbated by high winds that continually blew dirt onto the track surface.\u00a0 That made it much more of a drivers\u2019 race and Torrence proved equal to the task even though he spent an agonizing few nano-seconds waiting for Schumacher to drive past him at the finish line.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is huge,\u201d Torrence said of the bookend for his 2012 Summernationals win.\u00a0 \u201cThis was a tough race.\u00a0 Smoking tires, a pedal-fest (drivers feathering the throttle to try and regain traction).\u00a0 Down there at the end, my car shuts off before the finish line.\u00a0 I could tell it had holes out (cylinders that no longer were firing), and it wasn\u2019t wanting to go anywhere.\u00a0 It knocked the (supercharger drive) belt off so I\u2019m trying to Flintstone it to get it to the end and somehow we managed to squeak in there ahead of Schumacher.\u201d<\/p>\n

In taking his Capco Contractors\/Rio Ammunition Top Fuel dragster to the final round for the third time in the last five races, Torrence sped to within shouting distance of the Mello Yello point lead and an advantageous starting spot in the Countdown to the Mello Yello Championship.<\/p>\n

\"159-SteveTorrence-Sunday-Englishtown\"<\/p>\n

When racing begins Friday in the 16th<\/sup> annual NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol, Tenn., another race in which he will be seeking a second tour victory, he\u2019ll be just 65 points behind pacesetting Doug Kalitta and only 16 behind two-time and reigning series champ Antron Brown.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s too early to be counting points,\u201d Torrence cautioned, noting that there still are eight races remaining before the Countdown, \u201cbut you do want to distance yourself from the people behind you and catch up to the guys ahead of you.\u00a0 So we\u2019re just trying to go rounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Torrence\u2019s dragster, which had been the picture of perfection in completing 52 of 56 1,000 foot sprints this year under full power, didn\u2019t make a clean run all day Sunday and that made the driver\u2019s contribution far more meaningful.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be able to come out and leave here with a Wally for Bobby and Dom (Lagana) is huge,\u201d said the seven-time pro winner in reference to car chief Bobby Lagana and his racing brother Dom, natives of\u00a0Scarsdale, N.Y., who literally grew up at Raceway Park where their late father, Bobby Lagana Sr., was a fan favorite.\u00a0 \u201cThose guys have a lot of history here. This is home for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cDom did a great job this week in his car (losing in the second round of Top Fuel for the second straight year) and when they lost, they rolled over here and helped us,\u201d Torrence continued.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a family out here and Bobby and Dom are part of our family.\u00a0 I\u2019m just proud to have contributed to this win.”<\/p>\n

The day was such that, for the final round, the discussion was not how to go faster, but how to slow down a race car that has set the performance pace for most of the season, qualifying at the front of the pack in fully half the races.<\/p>\n

\u201cCollectively, we sat there in the lounge,\u201d Torrence recalled, referring to himself, tuning consultant Alan Johnson, crew chief Richard Hogan and the Laganas.\u00a0 \u201cThe right lane had not been good all day, but we lost lane choice and got stuck over there in it.\u00a0 We saw Schumacher go .84 (3.843) in the semis and we knew the right lane was not going to hold an .84.\u00a0 We needed to go A to B and not beat ourselves and that\u2019s what we did.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took a bunch of timing out of it and slowed the flows down,\u201d he said of the planned de-tune.\u00a0 \u201cIt didn\u2019t like it.\u00a0 It put holes out.\u00a0 But the bottom line is it wasn\u2019t smokin\u2019 the tires.\u00a0 I could hear (Schumacher\u2019s U.S. Army car) when we left.\u00a0 I could tell he was right with us.\u00a0 I could hear him slap (the throttle, trying to overcome traction loss) and I knew he had to pedal it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a great team win,\u201d concluded the man who this year is trying to become the first driver to win NHRA championships in both the Top Alcohol (2005) and Top Fuel divisions.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ll celebrate this one a little but we start racing again in five days.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t leave you much time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although he now has won twice at Raceway Park, Torrence did not advance out of the first round in his other four appearances which forms the basis for his \u201call or nothing\u201d reputation at the iconic New Jersey track.<\/p>\n

Story courtesy of Dave Denswood<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ENGLISHTOWN, N.J \u2013 Steve Torrence extended his all-or-nothing history at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park Sunday, applying an exclamation point to a wire-to-wire victory in the 47th annual NHRA Summernationals by driving his Capco Contractors\/Rio Ammunition Top Fuel dragster past the U.S. Army hybrid of eight-time series champion Tony Schumacher in the final round. If […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3786,"comment_status":"open","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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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":[6,50],"class_list":["post-4239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhra","tag-nhra","tag-steve-torrence"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/159-SteveTorrence-Sunday-Englishtown-e1465787988832.jpg?fit=615%2C409&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-16n","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4240,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4239\/revisions\/4240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}