Steve Torrence finished second in NHRA’s 2023 Top Fuel points standings which didn’t sit well with him.

Torrence, who believed he let the championship slip away by not driving up to his world championship standards, didn’t waste any time getting his 2024 season going.

Torrence’s Capco entry had the quickest ET in both qualifying sessions Friday at the Gatornationals and took the provisional No. 1 spot with his 3.690-second elapsed time at 333.08 mph in Q2 at Gainesville Raceway.

“This gives me more confidence going into (Saturday) to know that car has been really, really good, performed well and doing what they want it to do,” said Torrence, a four-time world champion from 2018-21.

"You come here, and the grains are high, the humidity's high, the weather, it's different than most places we go, so you need to be geared up and make a lot of power. And I think at the end of the day, that's probably what was the culprit for a lot of these other cars was just thinking they were making more power than what they really were. And so, I don't know what they got going on, but it's a good race car right now. At the PRO Superstar Shootout (in Bradenton, Fla., Feb. 8-10), we didn't have that good of a race car until the final day. And I think from that point moving in, we were able to build on that and make some good leaps and bounds.”

Torrence was quick to credit his veteran crew chief Richard Hogan for keeping his team on track.

“Richard Hogan's really good at making a run going home or going back to the hotel and completely tearing it apart and analyzing the data and figuring something out,” Torrence said. “And for me, I'm just looking at a screen with different colored lines and squiggles and I thought, ‘What the hell is all that?’ But he does a really good job at that.

“And so I think that those two runs right there are a product of the last year and a half, two years come into fruition because that's been one of the most difficult things of my career is to have a car that was as dominant and as strong as what it was and say, ‘Okay, we're going to put that on the shelf and try something new.’ But back to your question, it gives me confidence going into tomorrow. I think it probably gives them confidence as well to say, ‘Hey, we kind of got a handle on it and let's go into this shootout. See if we can't win the thing.’”

On Saturday, Torrence will be the No. 1 seed in the lineup for the Pep Boys NHRA Top Fuel All-Star Callout. It’s a star-studded field that includes five world champions, record-breaking drivers, and a host of all-star drivers.

The race, which started in 2022 and pits eight standouts against each other in a unique specialty shootout, begins at noon Saturday.

“I'm supposed to know, but I don't,” said Torrence on who he will Callout in round one. “I'll ask them tomorrow and we will go from there. But this is eight cars. I mean this is the quickest cars and forgive me, I don't know how they come up with this... Who's where because I don't know how because I don't feel like we...we did better than I thought I did because somehow, we're number one.

“But that says a lot to be No. 1 in a field of cars, eight cars that are so dominant throughout the season because I mean, this is some of the toughest competition in my career. I’m looking forward to it's going to be a good time. I've won this thing before, but not here. We won it in Indy. So, we'll go out here and have a good time put on a go show for these fans. This is a great facility to come to. I mean, it's packed on the first run on Friday, so that makes it fun. And the weather's cooperating with us. Hopefully, it continues, and we'll just see what we can do.”

Torrence wouldn’t budge on who his first round Callout opponent will be.

“That's a loaded question because with me it's just any given day. I mean, my target changes and I figured out something about myself by watching the Michael Jordan documentary. I got to have a target,” Torrence said. In the years past, I've always been pretty vocal about the target. And then in recent years, I've just been a little quieter about it and kept it to myself. But you got to have something that motivates you and something that drives you. And it's different from day to day for me, from round to round for me. So, every one of these guys and girls out here are the best or they wouldn't be here. And anytime you get a round win against any of them, it's good. It's better when it's on a hole shot. It's definitely more agonizing when it's on a hole shot loss, but it's what we do.”

Although Torrence was the most dominant Top Fuel driver during his four championship seasons, he knew his team had to evolve if it was going to add more titles in the future.

 

 

“I think that ultimately we had peaked with what we were doing,” Torrence said. “We could run 70 flat to 68 down a dirt road, but when everybody else was running 66, we could still run 67. It just wasn't where we wanted to be. And I think especially at Dallas last year running 63, 64, a couple 64 and 5s, that was all the work starting to pay off. Ultimately, it's just making power and getting it to the ground, and that's what everybody is trying to do.

“But I don't envy the shoes that Brittany (Force is) in right now because it's difficult. I mean, as a driver you don't do anything but drive the car, but mentally there's a lot that plays into how you perform based off how your car performs. And if anybody tells you it doesn't matter, they hadn't done it long enough.”

Torrence lost in the final round last year at the Gators to Mike Salinas, and not winning did start wearing on him since his last championship season in 2021.

“I think I went to Hoagie a couple of times and said, ‘What the hell are you doing? We had a really good race car and now we can't outrun our own shadow.’ But you think that, you feel that, but I hired those guys to do a job and you stand behind them because the success that we had didn't just and appear. We started Richard Hogan and I have been together since 2011. And actually, a year or two before that with Dexter Tuttle, I brought Richard in. So, my dad's told me my whole life, ‘You hire a guy, you put him in a spot, you support him the best you can and let him do his job.’ And that's what we've done. And Richard and Bobby (Lagana) and every one of those guys. I mean, they've taken me to the front and it's not for lack of... We've had controversy, we've had ups and downs and highs and lows and cried and hugged and every bit of it together. But that's what you do as a team. And, I mean, that's why that team has been together for so long.”

Torrence then took a moment to describe why people should experience drag racing in their lives.

“I've never brought anyone to the drag races that has never been to the drag races that didn't instantly think this is the coolest thing I've ever seen,” Torrence said. If you're on the fence about whether or not you want to come because I can watch it on TV. No, you can't watch it on TV. You can't smell nitro; you can't feel sound. Every sense that you have is stimulated by a Top Fuel car when you feel the ground shake and the car alarms out here a mile away go off and you're crying because you don't want to and you're coughing because it's so bad for you and it's the quickest accelerating vehicle in the world. And you're standing there watching it thinking that guy is a little bitty guy and he's an idiot.

“There's nothing to describe it. And so back to how I started that, I've never brought anyone to the drag races that was kind of on the fence about it that didn't leave. And they're like, ‘Man, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen and how do I get down there?’ Then they call you two weeks later like, man, ‘We were watching it at home this weekend and we had the surround sound on and the TV as loud as it would go. And I'm standing there in the living room jumping.’ Because once you experience it, you're like, ‘Man, that guy's completely lost it. He is off his rocker. He climbed in a little bitty like antenna, laid over sideways, strapped himself to it and they sent him down through there at 335 mph. Something is wrong with that guy." And people love watching it because there's fire going everywhere and they blow up, and I mean, all kinds of stuff. The things that you like to see, I don't like to experience, but it's fun.”

A year ago, Torrence finished 48 points behind first-time world champion Doug Kalitta. Torrence had a win in Seattle and five runner-up finishes.

There’s no question Torrence always wants to be a world champion, but he did praise Kalitta for finally getting his first title.

“There's a lot of mixed emotions there because ultimately that's how God wanted it to happen. Doug won the championship and I'm very happy for Doug because I don't think you deserve to win anything,” Torrence said. “You either win it or you don't. That guy has been in the fight numerous times and just not gotten there. And I wanted to win that championship and we lost that championship. And when I say we, it's the guy sitting in this seat right now because there were a couple rounds that I lost on hole shots that would've won that championship.

“So, I burden that. I keep that very close in my mind and move forward because I did not perform like the Steve Torrence of the four championships prior. And there's a certain burden that I carry that with, but I'm very happy for Doug. I think that those guys came out, they performed when they needed to perform, and they'd done a great job and I'm happy to see him win that championship. He did his job. He did his job when it counted, and they won that championship. And I wanted to be the first to congratulate him because 26 years and being as close as he's been and not doing it, I was glad he did because you can do it for a career and never win a championship or never win a race. But for him to have had all the successes that he's had in the past but not win a championship, I mean I was glad for him.”

 

 

 

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