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TORRENCE EYES BEST EVER FINISH
CAPCO Driver Rides Momentum into Toyota Nationals

October 28, 2015 -- Nevada – How high can he fly? 

Coming off a runner-up finish in his most recent start on the NHRA pro tour, Steve Torrence moves this week to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor where, on Halloween weekend, the trick will be to maintain momentum now that the ultimate treat, a career best Top Fuel points finish, clearly is within his reach.

The 32-year-old cancer survivor and former Top Alcohol Dragster world champion (2005) will start the 15th annual Toyota Nationals in sixth place in Mello Yello points, the same position in which he and his Richard Hogan-tuned Capco Contractors Top Fuel dragster finished the series one year ago.

“The goal every year is to win the championship,” Torrence said.  “That never changes.  The thing is, you can’t have a mental letdown as a driver or a team late in the season when you’re faced with the fact that it’s not going to happen.  Only one driver is going to win (the $500,000 championship) and unless he’s abducted by aliens, this year it looks like it’s going to be Antron (Brown).”

Indeed, Brown has a commanding lead in pursuit of his second championship in four years.  He leads teammate and reigning champion Tony Schumacher by 132 points and Torrence by 251. 

Still, the Capco team is not without motivation.

“If you can’t win (the championship), you have to focus on what you can do,” Torrence said.  “We have a good chance to finish higher than last year, maybe as high as third.  Plus you want to close out on a high note so you have something to build on.”

Torrence is in a group of five battling immediately behind Brown and Schumacher.  Although he’s No. 6 coming in, the avid outdoorsman is only two-plus rounds out of third place (48 points behind Richie Crampton, to whom he lost two weeks ago in the final round of the AAA Texas Fall Nationals at Dallas).  

“We may have a trick or two for ‘em,” he said of his Vegas rivals.  “A.J. (performance consultant Alan Johnson) and Hogan have been scheming, so we’ll see.”

A winner earlier this year at Denver, Colo., where he beat Schumacher in the final round for his fifth tour victory in four seasons, Torrence will be joined in Vegas, as he was in Texas, by his dad, Billy.

The founder and CEO of Texas-based Capco Contractors, an international specialist in oil and gas pipeline construction and maintenance, the elder Torrence not only will drive the team’s second Top Fuel dragster, he also will compete in Super Comp, the category in which he was the Vegas winner in 2011.

 

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