The irony was the stuff that the U.S. Nationals is made of. Making his first start at Indianapolis, Kebin Kinsley knocked off semifinal opponent Tony Schumacher, the dominator of this Labor Day classic with 10 victories who reached the final round in his own first event here and his first dragster event ever, in 1996.

Kinsley, who had just a single elimination round-win to his Top Fuel credit in Roger Hennen’s “Road Rage” entry, began his day by upsetting Clay Millican, the No. 1 qualifier. He took out another champion, Shawn Langdon, in the quarterfinals.

But power and might and grit and domination also are the stuff that the U.S. Nationals is made of. And Steve Torrence blew the pixie dust from Kinsley’s fairytale dream Monday in the dragster-class finals at Lucas Oil Raceway.

Torrence flexed his muscles in the final round, reeling off a 3.757-second elapsed time on the 1,000-foot course at a 322.96-mph speed in the Capco Contractors Dragster, while Kinsley lost traction immediately following the launch and finished with a 10.820, 48.47 showing.

Torrence, the independent from Kilgore, Texas, proved to be not only the No. 1 Texas racer, outperforming Kennedale’s Kinsley in the event final and Austin resident Tony Schumacher in the Traxxas Shootout final Staurday. Torrence was the powerhouse of the entire NHRA Top Fuel class.

He bumped three-time and reigning champion Antron Brown from the No. 1 seeding for the six-race Countdown to the Championship that begins with the Sept. 15-17 Carolina Nationals at Concord, N.C.

After that $100,000 payday that was a bonus and prelude to Monday’s fabled “Big Go,” Torrence declared, “Tony Schumacher always says he’s a machine. We dismantled the machine today.”

So Torrence, the privateer who tongue-in-cheek calls his supporters just “old hillbilly pipeliners” and his crew members “outlaws and misfits,” clearly is on a roll with a class-best seven victories.

In addition to becoming just the sixth Top Fuel driver to win a bonus race and an NHRA event in the same weekend (joining Schumacher, Langdon, Gary Scelzi, Joe Amato, and Rod Fuller), Torrence earned an event-high 12 qualifying bonus points here.  For the weekend, he was only three points short of claiming every point possible.

But aside from all the fun at the sport’s marquee event, Torrence knows it’s time to knuckle down.

“Our goal was to be No. 1 and get that 30-point advantage going into the Countdown and we did that.  But this is no time to pat ourselves on the back.  There’s still a lot of work to do,” he said. “It’s real easy to go from hero to zero and zero to hero in those last six races.”

Torrence is well aware he has the three Don Schumacher Racing drivers (Brown, Leah Pritchett, and Tony Schumacher) on his heels in the Nos. 2, 3, and 4 slots, respectively. Doug Kalitta, Brittany Force, and Clay Millican are next in the order. Perennial underdogs and fan favorites Terry McMillen and Scott Palmer locked in Top Fuel Countdown berths at Nos. 8 and 9. And Shawn Langdon, the 2103 champion who’s starting to find his groove with his new teammates at Kalitta Motorsports, moved into the No. 10 and final Countdown position when Troy Coughlin Jr. stepped away from the seat last week.

But he’s happy to erase any conspiracy theories he had before this 63rd edition of the event. The Capco Contractors Dragster driver said Monday he had begun to fear somebody had put a curse on him or “sprayed win-repellant on me” as the race approached.

His victory over surprise finalist Kebin Kinsley erased his fears, as he earned not only his seventh triumph of the season but also the No. 1 seeding for the six-race Countdown to the Championship that starts in two weeks at Charlotte.

Torrence, winner also of Saturday’s $100,000 Traxxas Shootout bonus race jackpot, said, “To be able to do this in the same weekend is surreal. I don’t even know if I know what’s going on right now. Unless you’re in this situation, I don’t know that you can explain it. You’re overjoyed. But it’s a marathon. I’m wore out.”

But he understood the significance of it: “If you win all kinds of championships but you don’t win Indy, you really ain’t got s---.”  

Torrence was runner-up to Shawn Langdon in 2013, to Richie Crampton in 2014, and to Tony Schumacher last September. He also was a two-time runner-up in the Traxxas Shootout before Saturday.

“I was glad to get the monkey off my back,” Torrence said, who eliminated Ashley Sanford, Brown, and Pritchett.

Torrence shared the winners circle with three Indiana residents: Lawrenceburg native JR Todd (Funny Car), Bargersville’s Drew Skillman (Pro Stock), and Avon resident and New Jersey transplant Eddie Krawiec (Pro Stock Motorcycle). Torrence, Todd, and Skillman all were first time U.S. Nationals winners.