Steve Torrence has been dominating in NHRA’s Top Fuel ranks this season.

The Texas driver arrived at the 31st annual CatSpot NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways near Seattle first in points – 137 points in front of second-place Tony Schumacher.

Torrence has five race wins and 29 round wins in 2018 and one No. 1 qualifier at Chicago.

Torrence, who pilots the Capco Racing entry, is trying to make it two top qualifying positions and he moved that way by claiming the provisional No. 1 Friday.

Torrence clocked a 3.723-second run at 331.61 mph during the second qualifying session to claim his position atop the qualifying ladder.

“We’ve done well here in the past and I can’t remember if I have qualified No. 1 here before or I was just No. 1 on Friday and we have some good history here,” Torrence said. “We have some good data here and it is always fun to come here and race. It’s a little smaller venue per say some of the places we go to and it is really kind of like the places I grew up racing at, so I enjoy coming here and I’m confident going into (Saturday). We will see how things pan out and what the weather conditions are going to be.”

Torrence recorded a 3.754-second pass in Q1, which set the stage for Q2.

“Coming out of the box and making a good run, and then being able to back it up on the second one that does build your confidence,” Torrence said. “It kind of surprised me because I thought that Clay (Millican) would go out there and run a little harder than what they did and maybe they just got a little too aggressive and we were right on the edge. It definitely was a good day.”

Doug Kalitta (3.730) and Millican (3.743) are second and third in the qualifying order.

Torrence did take a moment to talk about holding the No. 1 position in the points through the U.S. Nationals and into the six-race Countdown to the Championship.

“With the way the points are at Indy, it makes it a very crucial race for at least trying to fend guys off,” Torrence said. “We have this and (Brainerd, Minn.) left before Indy and I think we are close to seven rounds ahead, so we could go into there with a better lead or close to breaking even. We will see how these two go, but I feel confident that we can hold on that (No. 1 spot). We will just see how the cards fall out and what the good Lord thinks. I think we have a good shot at going into the Countdown with the lead again.”