>>BACK


TORRENCES MAKE HISTORY; GO FOR MORE AT TOPEKA
Father, Son Both are NHRA National Event Winners this Year

May 18, 2016 -- Second generation winners are not uncommon in the Mello Yello Series.  However, it still is quite uncommon for fathers and sons or, in the case of John Force, fathers and daughters, to win NHRA national events in the same season. 

So, when Billy Torrence, 58, claimed the Super Comp title in last week’s 29th annual Summit Southern Nationals at Atlanta to join son Steve, 33, as a 2016 NHRA tour winner, they became just the ninth pair to accomplish that feat with at least one of the victories coming at the professional level.

When racing begins this week in the 28th NHRA Kansas Nationals at Heartland Park-Topeka, they will have a chance to become just the fourth such family pairing to win titles in the same event in the same year, the younger Torrence at the wheel of the Capco Contractors/Rio Ammunition Top Fuel dragster; his dad at the controls of the same Capco-backed Super Comp dragster in which he won at Atlanta.

The only families with two winners from two different generations in a single event are the Bernsteins, Kenny and Brandon, who won in Top Fuel and Top Alcohol Dragster at the spring race at Las Vegas in 2001; the Forces, John and Ashley, who prevailed in Funny Car and Top Alcohol Dragster at the 2014 AAA Finals at Pomona, Calif.; and the Smiths, Rickie and Matt, the Pro Modified and Pro Stock Motorcycle winners at the Summit Nationals at Norwalk, Ohio, in 2013.

Steve Torrence, a former NHRA champion in Top Alcohol Dragster (2005), was the Top Fuel winner at the season-opening Circle K Winternationals at Pomona, Calif., and has been the No. 1 qualifier four times in seven races this season.  Billy Torrence has won two national events in his Super Comp career and is a former NHRA Division 4 champion (1999).  He is the founder and CEO of Capco Contractors, a Texas-based, family-owned company specializing in pipeline construction and maintenance.

 

# # #