Las Vegas Odds Favor Torrence

On a track on which he has been a finalist in eight of his last 12 starts, Texan Steve Torrence aims to put himself back on the fast track to another championship this week when he sends his CAPCO Contractors Top Fuel Toyota to the line at the 24th Ford Performance Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The last eight times he’s run this race, whether it was called the Toyota Nationals, the Dodge Finals or the Nevada Nationals, the 41-year-old cancer survivor has gone 22-5 in individual heats and hoisted the trophy on three separate occasions.

With a win this week, he would join another elite group comprised of pro drivers who have won as many as 50 rounds of racing at one track.

However, to do so, the four-time world champion and his CAPCO crew will need to get themselves back onto the same page, performance-wise. 

“I still feel good about the championship,” said the only driver ever to have won NHRA world titles in both the Top Fuel and Top Alcohol categories.  “We’ve shot ourselves in the foot a couple times, but I don’t think we’ve shot (that foot) smooth off.  

“The thing is, we just can’t make any more mistakes,” acknowledged the only driver to have swept the races in the Countdown (2018).  “We’re down 91 points (to Justin Ashley) and, going into Pomona (and the season-ending In-N-Out Finals, which rewards drivers at one-and-a-half times the standard rate), we need to at least be within two rounds.  So, we’ve got some work to do.

“We have an opportunity,” he said.  “Vegas has been good to us.  We’ve won a lot of rounds (46, more than at any other venue) and a lot of races (a total of five) but, to be honest, that’s old news.  It’s all about what we can do this weekend and I can’t think of anybody I’d rather go into a battle like this with than these CAPCO boys.

“They’ve been here,” he said of the veteran crew led by Richard Hogan and Bobby Lagana Jr.  “They know the pressure. They know what needs to be done.  The challenge is to just go out and do it!”

Already a member of the sport’s 500 Club, reserved for drivers who have won at least that many competitive rounds, the 55-time pro tour winner is counting on Vegas to thrust him prominently back into contention for a championship he last won in 2021.

Winner of at least one event in a tour best nine straight seasons, Torrence’s only win of the current campaign came July 21 when he beat Shawn Langdon, another former champion, in the final round of the NHRA Northwest Nationals at Seattle, Wash.

Meanwhile, Billy Torrence, founder and CEO of CAPCO Contractors and driver of the second CAPCO Toyota, will be making his 100th pro start this week seeking his ninth Top Fuel victory.

Nitro qualifying sessions are at 3 and 5:30 p.m., Texas time, on both Friday and Saturday and will set the starting lineup for Sunday eliminations beginning at 1 p.m., Texas time.