>>BACK

For Immediate Release
Contact: Dave Densmore, denswood@aol.com / 214-244-0008, mobile

 

TORRENCE FALLS TO EVENT WINNER SCHUMACHER
Dropped Cylinder Victimizes Capco Contractors Dragster

           June 22, 2014 --In drag racing, timing is everything and, for NHRA Mello Yello title contender Steve Torrence, right now his seems to be just a little bit off.

            The 31-year-old Texan expected to roll his Capco Contractors Top Fuel dragster to the starting line against seven-time series champion Tony Schumacher at some point in Sunday’s second annual Auto-Plus New England Nationals, but he didn’t expect it to be in the very first round.

            Nevertheless, racing without benefit of lane choice for the first time in 11 starts this year, Torrence forged a narrow lead. 

            Unfortunately, it evaporated just beyond 330 feet when the engine dropped a cylinder.  That cost the former Top Alcohol Dragster World Champion almost 1,200 horsepower, slowing him to 3.922 seconds at only 304.19 miles per hour. 

            Schumacher, who ultimately went on to win his second race of the season, got to the finish line first with a time of 3.854 seconds at 322.34 mph.

            “It was a good race until we dropped a hole,” Torrence said.  “You can’t do that against a team like that.  First of the year, we were getting  some of the breaks.  Now we can’t seem to buy one.  We’ll just go on to Chicago (for this week’s 17th annual O’Reilly Route 66 Nationals) and try to do some good there.

            “It’s a great racetrack,” Torrence said of the all-concrete surface at New England Dragway, “but we never got it going.  We’ve run 4.70s almost everywhere we’ve gone this year, on worse tracks in worse conditions.  Just didn’t happen this weekend.”

            Torrence will try to regain his early season form in Chicago on a track on which he was runner-up to Antron Brown in 2012 and on which he has forged a solid 6-3 record overall.

            The net result of the weekend was that Torrence and Schumacher swapped positions in Mello Yello points, both still comfortably in the Top 10.

 

# # #