Although it’s been three years since Steve Torrence last raised the trophy as World Champion, the 40-year-old driver of the CAPCO Contractors Top Fuel Toyota still believes he and his CAPCO boys have the wherewithal to add a few more titles to an already bulging trophy case.
“These CAPCO boys are still the best in the business,” Torrence said on the eve of this week’s 56th annual Amalie Gatornationals, the opening event in the 2025 Mission Foods Series. “They haven’t lost anything. It’s just that the competition is so much better than it was.
“We had eight different winners last year and seven different No. 1 qualifiers,” noted the man who seven years ago defied conventional wisdom when he swept the six races in the NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship on the way to the first of four straight series titles.
“There are no easy rounds,” he said. “On race day, everybody has to be perfect and, even then, there’s no guarantee.
“We’ve had some disappointments over the last couple of seasons and we’re coming off a seventh place finish,” he said, “but I still feel like we’ve got a lot of wins left in us and, after a couple months away, I think all of us are ready to get back after it.”
The Gatornationals is a tough opener for the former Top Alcohol Dragster Champion, the only driver ever to win NHRA series titles in both Top Alcohol and Top Fuel. Notably, it is one of only three events in the series he has won but a single time in his pro career.
That lone victory, in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, came at the wheel of a one-off “Big Daddy” Don Garlits tribute car, a win made the more special because Garlits was in the tow vehicle when Torrence beat his dad Billy in an all-CAPCO final round.
Minus the Garlits’ magic, Torrence was 8-10 in his first 10 appearances in the Florida classic and has gone 7-4 since his breakthrough, his best result a runner-up finish to Mike Salinas in 2023.
Although he hasn’t been as productive the last three seasons as he would’ve liked, Torrence enters the current campaign having won at least one tour event for 10 straight years. That’s the longest active streak in Top Fuel and second longest overall.
Since the start of the 2017 season, no one has won more races (47) or appeared in more final rounds (66) than the man who, as a teenager, overcame Hodgkins lymphoma, and who, as an adult, battled back from a heart attack suffered after a particularly strenuous workout in 2016.
Qualifying sessions for the Gatornationals are scheduled at 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., Texas time, Friday. Torrence will open his bid for a second trophy in the Right Trailers All-Star Callout in a first round beginning at 11:15 a.m., Texas time, on Saturday. Subsequent rounds are scheduled for 1:20 and 2:30 p.m., Texas time. Sunday’s single elimination finals in the Mission Foods series opener begin at 9:30 a.m., Texas time.
This story was originally published on March 5, 2025. 
The post Steve Torrence Eyes Another Championship as 2025 Season Begins first appeared on Drag Illustrated.