BOBBY LAGANA ENJOYING ROLE WITH TORRENCE TEAM

by Tracy Renck    Tue, 2019-02-19 22:09

 

The domination of Top Fuel driver Steve Torrence was unprecedented at the end of the 2018 season.

Torrence did the unthinkable, sweeping the final six races in the Countdown to the Championship as he rolled to his first Top Fuel world title.

Torrence continued his momentum at the season-opening Winternationals Feb. 10 at Pomona, Calif., winning three rounds in a row before falling in the finals to Doug Kalitta.

Co-crew chief Bobby Lagana acknowledged maintaining the team’s high-level of success isn’t as easy as it looks.

“We take everything apart when we go home over the winter,” Lagana said. “Along with taking everything apart, and assembling it is having it work the same. That’s what preseason testing was about. Ideally, you say you just don’t touch anything from the last run because it ran so well. But, everything sits over the winter and you just want to be prepared for the year. We disassemble and maintain everything.”

At the 2019 Winter Testing Jan. 31-Feb. 2 at Wild Horse Motorsports Park near Phoenix, Steve Torrence had the fastest elapsed time with a 3.689-second at 328.78 mph. Billy Torrence, Steve’s father, was third quickest at 3.731 seconds.

Steve followed the test up by qualifying No. 1 in Pomona with a 3.657-second run at 331.61 mph. Billy qualified No. 2 at 3.662 seconds at 326.79 mph. Billy’s day came to an end in the second round when he lost on a holeshot to Kalitta.

Lagana said Jason McCulloch is the crew chief for Billy’s Top Fuel dragster.

“Billy’s going to run about 14 races this year,” Lagana said. “His plan was to do the Phoenix test, run Pomona and then run (at the Arizona Nationals, Feb. 22-24) and then we will take it from there. t’s fun to have Billy and (his wife) Kay and Steve out here because they all get so excited to be at the race track and be able to race together. Our goal is to make sure everything is in tip-top shape and have them enjoy themselves.”

Lagana acknowledged being crowned a world champion in 2018 is a great label to now have.

“It was an amazing winter,” Lagana said. “We had a lot of fun. We have a lot of fun all the time anyway but give us the opportunity to have a world championship behind us and we definitely enjoyed each other’s company and had a lot of good lunches and dinners and some parties here and there. We took a lot of time to reflect on the year.

What’s cool is a bunch of the guys on this team have worked together in some capacity for the last 20 years and to be able to do that together was pretty special. (Crew chief) Richard Hogan spent a bunch of time in the winter with us and he brought back a bunch of old pictures from years ago with him and Big Daddy (Don Garlits) and to go over those moments with him and understand how long he has been doing this and how successful he’s been and have it all culminate in a world championship was pretty special. He has a lot of history behind him. I didn’t even realize Steve is the only person to win a Top Alcohol world championship and a nitro world championship.”

Lagana is keeping things in perspective for the 2019 season.

“We will just see what happens this year,” he said. “You can’t have a better year than we did (in 2018). We had 11 race wins and we swept the Countdown, and Billy won a race (in Brainerd, Minn.). Our goal is to be competitive and have the best-looking equipment out here. If being competitive puts you in position to win some races, then we will have it.”

 

 

 

 
Categories: 
:::::: News ::::::