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

 

TORRENCE TRIES AGAIN TO BREAK OUT
Despite Consistency, Winning Proves Elusive

June 11, 2015 -- In drag racing, the importance of consistency cannot be overstated.  It is what separates the magnificent from the mediocre but, as Texan Steve Torrence has learned the past two seasons, it is no guarantee of success.

            Consider last week’s NHRA event at Englishtown, N.J. 

            Top Fuel point leader Antron Brown got his car down the racetrack, under power, on every attempt, a rarity on a tricky new surface at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park.  It took him an average of 3.794 seconds to cover the 1,000 foot course, start to finish.  Not surprisingly, he won the race. 

            Torrence, on the other hand, got his Capco Contractors hybrid down the course on every run and did it almost as well as Brown.  His average was 3.795 seconds.  His reward?  A first round loss that sends him into this week’s third annual Auto-Plus New England Nationals languishing outside the Top 10 for the first time in more than a year.

            “That was on me,” Torrence said of the result.  “The guys gave me a great hot rod and I didn’t do the job for them.  I’m just glad we’re racing again this week so we can put that behind us.”

            Getting back to the business of winning rounds won’t be easy on a track on which the 32-year-old cancer survivor has yet to see a win light.  Nevertheless, he remains optimistic, confident that at some point the pendulum will swing the other direction as he tries to fight his way back into contention for the $500,000 Mello Yello Championship for which he finished sixth a year ago.

            “It just shows you how hard it is to win out here,” Torrence said, “and I don’t mean winning races, I mean winning rounds.  There are no easy rounds.  Last week, we qualified in the top half (of the 16-car field) and who do we get first round?  Doug Kalitta.  It’s like that every week but that’s what drives us, beating the best is the motivation.”

            Despite recent results, Torrence obviously knows how to win.  He was the NHRA World Champion in the Top Alcohol Dragster division in 2005 and, along with his four Top Fuel wins, he’s been the Top Fuel runner-up the last two seasons at the Chevrolet U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, Ind., the world’s oldest, largest and most prestigious drag race.

            “It’s a fine line,” he said of the difference between winning and losing, “and this year we’ve been on the wrong side of the line.  It’s not like we can work any harder.  We work harder when we’re losing than when we’re winning because you want to get back to that feeling.  Everybody does.  It happens and you just have to work through it.”

 

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