TORRENCE WORKS IT LIKE A TRUE-BLUE COLLAR CHAMPION

by Bobby Bennett    Fri, 2019-02-01 19:31

There's a fine line between winning and losing — a fine line between being confident and cocky.

"I think I figured that out two years ago," NHRA Top Fuel champion Steve Torrence admitted. "I’m very confident. I think that maybe some of my confidence comes off as cockiness and looking back on it I regret that because maybe some of the ways that I've acted [in the past] wasn’t a true indication of who I really am.

"I don’t have anything really to be cocky about. I mean I’ve got a really good group of guys over here that have stuck with us through thick and thin and work their tails off day in and day out. I go home and work at CAPCO, and I’ve got a great group of guys there that make all of this possible as well. I’ve said it a couple times already; it’s just humbling to be part of something like this."

Some might argue its hard to be humble when you clean sweep a Countdown to the Champion. Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning during the PRO Winter Warm-up at Wild Horse Motorsports Park, Torrence simply picked up where he left off.

Torrence thundered to the quickest run of Wednesday with a 3.72 elapsed time and returned on Thursday afternoon with a 3.689, 328.78. And just like last season, Torrence was in a different world than the competition, running nearly .05 quicker than the closest non-Torrence Racing entry.

Torrence has made running a "store-bought" Top Fuel operation look like a work of art.

"We’re not some big powerhouse that’s building our own parts," Torrence said. "I mean we buy all our parts from the shelf and put them on the race car and use them and they’re great parts. Everybody out here’s running something that is very, very similar if not the same. It probably is the exact same, and it just has a different stamp engraved on it.

"Whether it’s DSR, or DSM, or Force, or AJ. I mean, these things are so close. Nobody’s making enough difference in power to really change. It’s all about the boys that put these things together and the guys that are making the calls to tune it. At the end of the day, parts and pieces, they can all interchange. It’s the guys that are doing the work, and these guys, they just pay attention to detail — my hat’s off to them. I can’t give them enough credit where credit’s due. We went out, and we bought everything off the shelf and put it on the race car and won the championship."

There are many who believe Torrence is exactly the kind of blue-collar champion NHRA drag racing has needed for a while. He's quick to point out after the race is over on Sunday, he's back at CAPCO on Monday, working his real job at the family business.

"I’m not going to say what NHRA needs," Torrence contends. "I’m not going to say that they needed me. I have a ton of fans that support us, and our diehard Torrence Racing, Steve Torrence, CAPCO fans, and I’m thankful and grateful for each and every one of them. And then there’s a lot of people that don’t like Steve Torrence and don’t like me, and they don’t really know me, but they see something about me on T.V. or whatever. Everybody’s entitled to their opinion, and that’s fine.

"I think one thing that this sport does need is personalities, people that are genuine and real and if you don’t like it … I mean if you want the cookie cutter, professional, thank my sponsors, thank my team and walk off and drink Mello Yello and all that then you’re barking up the wrong tree when you come over at this camp. We wear our hearts on our sleeves. We race with passion. We’re not corporate America, we’re good ole’ East Texas family-run race team and pipeliners, and we say what we think, and we race.

"We’re drag racers. We’re out here to win. We don’t make money drag racing. We do it because we love to do it and I think that that’s what this sport is built on is die-hard fans and people that want to work on their car in the garage and bring it out on the track on the weekends and race it and feel like they can relate to what we’re doing."

 

 

 

 
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