Torrence Runner-Up at St. Louis

On a track on which he has been dominant the last eight years, Steve Torrence re-energized his bid for a fifth Top Fuel World Championship Sunday with a runner-up finish in the 28th NHRA Midwest Nationals at World Wide Technology Raceway, just across the river from downtown St. Louis.

In reaching the money round for the seventh time in eight years at WWTR, the 41-year-old Texas businessman and his CAPCO Contractors Top Fuel Toyota moved up to fifth in the Mission Foods point standings midway through the NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship.

When qualifying for the 39th Texas Fall Nationals begins on Oct. 11 at the Texas Motorplex outside Dallas, Torrence will trail point leader Antron Brown, one of his closest friends on the tour, by 88 points.

“Still a lot of good cars ahead of us,” Torrence said, “but it’s a start, and now we’re going home to the Motorplex.  We’ve had good success there.  We set the (track) record last year and should’ve won the race so we feel pretty comfortable on that concrete with so many friends and family members there to support us.

“It’s fun racing Tony in a final round again,” said the 55-time tour winner.  “We used to do that on pretty regular basis.  Hopefully we can get back to that.  Good job by the CAPCO boys!”

Relegated to the less favored right lane for the final, Torrence did all he could, using a .036 reaction time to grab the initial lead before Schumacher’s 3.718 at 329.42 miles per hour trumped his 3.763 at only 316.90 mph.

The No. 8 qualifier, Torrence stopped rookie Ida Zetterstrom, Schumacher’s teammate, in the first round, took out No. 1 qualifier T.J. Zizzo in the quarterfinals and outran Justin Ashley in the semifinals.  

It was just the second loss for Torrence in his last 16 meetings with Schumacher, who was in the other lane when he won his first race on May 6, 2012 at Atlanta, Ga.

The two now have raced one another in 10 final rounds.  Torrence has won seven of those and has a 25-20 advantage overall.  By reaching Sunday’s final, the former Top Alcohol World Champion (2005) improved his record over the last eight years at WWTR to 27-4. 

For Billy Torrence, founder and CEO of CAPCO Contractors and driver of the team’s second Top Fuel Toyota, it was a much shorter day.  The 65-year-old Texan, a 10-time NHRA national event winner, couldn’t overcome the worst starting position of his Top Fuel career and fell to Zizzo in the opening stanza, 3.812 seconds at 310.84 mph to 3.718 at 330.88 mph for the winner.