{"id":89485,"date":"2023-09-19T12:18:21","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T12:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/steve-torrence-takes-points-lead-after-pep-boys-nhra-nationals\/"},"modified":"2023-09-19T12:18:21","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T12:18:21","slug":"steve-torrence-takes-points-lead-after-pep-boys-nhra-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/steve-torrence-takes-points-lead-after-pep-boys-nhra-nationals\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Torrence Takes Points Lead After Pep Boys NHRA Nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Doug Kalitta denied him a victory in Monday\u2019s rain-delayed wrap-up to the 38<\/span>th<\/span> Pep Boys Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway, but Steve Torrence will begin qualifying for this week\u2019s 15<\/span>th<\/span> Betway Carolina Nationals at ZMax Dragway as the Top Fuel point leader.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The 40-year-old Texan surged past regular season champion and No. 1 seed Justin Ashley, who was upset in the second round by former champion Tony Schumacher.<\/span><\/p>\n

Torrence subsequently took out Schumacher but, in the final, couldn\u2019t get his CAPCO Contractors dragster past Kalitta\u2019s MAC Tools entry despite a stellar 3.695 elapsed time.<\/span><\/p>\n

In winning for the first time in more than two years, Kalitta put up the two quickest times of the race including a 3.662 in that crucial final.<\/span><\/p>\n

The No. 4 qualifier at 3.698 seconds, Torrence ran 3.701 to beat Mike Salinas in round one, 3.701 a second time to dispatch close friend Antron Brown (to whom he lost in the final round of the Labor Day U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis, Ind.) and 3.685 to turn back Schumacher.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t get the \u2018W,\u2019 but it was still a good weekend,\u201d Torrence said.\u00a0 \u201cThese CAPCO boys gave us a chance, but we just ran up against a Kalitta buzzsaw in the final.\u00a0 Doug and A.J. (tuner Alan Johnson) and that team deserve all the credit.\u00a0 They\u2019ve had some issues, but they didn\u2019t have many this week.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNow it\u2019s \u2018game on\u2019 for the championship with Doug up to third (in points) and only three rounds separating six of us going to Charlotte,\u201d Torrence said, \u201cbut, like I\u2019ve said before, the only time it matters if you\u2019re on top in points is late Sunday afternoon at Pomona (at the conclusion of the season-ending In-N-Out Finals, the concluding event in the six-race Countdown).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With a car that averaged 3.697 seconds during Maple Grove eliminations (second only to Kalitta\u2019s 3.674), Torrence is anxious to throw down on an all-concrete surface at ZMax on which he has won six times over the last seven seasons.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The post Steve Torrence Takes Points Lead After Pep Boys NHRA Nationals<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated | Drag Racing News, Opinion, Interviews, Photos, Videos and More<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doug Kalitta denied him a victory in Monday\u2019s rain-delayed wrap-up to the 38th Pep Boys Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway, but Steve Torrence will begin qualifying for this week\u2019s 15th Betway Carolina Nationals at ZMax Dragway as the Top Fuel point leader.\u00a0 The 40-year-old Texan surged past regular season champion and No. 1 seed Justin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drag-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}