In life, the male is dominant in the house, but in my household my grandmother was always the driving force in our family. She introduced our family to so many sports like baseball, basketball, football , hockey, and yes drag racing. Our Family always enjoyed whenever there was an upset in any sport. It made you realize that how hard a team works to defy their critics and show just what their team is made of. Its a basic tenant of life in whatever you do
2 weeks ago, Steve Torrence and his team came into the Summit Racing Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway event with high hopes as he placed his Richard Hogan tuned Capco Top Fueler in the #2 position behind 7 time champ Tony Schumacher in the qualifying order. Torrence ran brilliantly in the heat as he beat JR Todd 3.84 to a 3.85. Track temperature at the time of the 1st round was over 130 degrees. Torrence would continue his astonishing pace in the heat as he defeated Bob Vandergriff 3.848 to a 3.884 to reach the semi finals.
The performance of the team was surprising to many but not to Steves fans which has been building and building. Chris Hobson (@NitroChrisUK) has been a vocal fan of Torrance's for quite awile, as well as John Amorosono (@NitroJohn) as well as myself. Most felt from the out set at Pomona during the Winternationals (where Torrence qualified near the top of the top fuel field) his first event wally wasn't too far away from his grasp.
In the semi finals, Steve would face Brandon Bernstein in his MAVTV Top Fuel dragster. Once again with track temps being over 130 degrees, Torrence continued his bracket car like pace as he defeated Bernstein 3.886 t0 a 3.890. As you can tell from his 3.82 in qualifying thru his semi final 3.886, Richard Hogan really had a great set up for the unrelenting heat.
But Steve Torrence's opponenet in the finals was none other than 7 time Top Fuel Champion Tony Schumacher in the US ARMY Top Fueler who had been mired in a winless drought. Torrence, having lane choice over Schumacher chose the lane nearest to the tv cameras which left Schumacher with the far lane which did not have many good runs in that lane. Although Schumacher left the line first with 0.031 reaction time to Torrence's slightly slower 0.046 rt, Tony smoked the tires near half track which gave the win to Steve Torrence who ran another fantastic 3.893 to win his first national event.
When a small private team can come up and challenge the might of Don Schumacher racing ( a team that I like very much) and win with consistency such as Steve Torrence had in Atlanta, it is amazing and an astonishing joy to watch. Many fans have felt in drag racing, anyone can be beaten on any given sunday during the season. This is something that sport of the @NHRA full throttle drag racing series prides itself on. That one day, just one day the Little Guys can beat The Big Guys.
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