Torrence Falls to Point Leader

On a track on which he and his CAPCO Contractors Top Fuel Toyota had raced in the final round seven of the last eight years, four-time World Champion Steve Torrence couldn’t overcome a disadvantageous starting position Sunday and fell to Mission Foods point leader Doug Kalitta in the 29th NAPA Midwest Nationals at World Wide Technology Raceway.

The result sends the future Hall Famer to his home race at the Texas Motorplex with little more than an outside shot at the Mission Foods Championship he won in consecutive seasons from 2018 through 2021.

The 42-year-old rancher and businessman rightfully expected to be a little closer to the lead at the halfway point of the Countdown to the Championship.  Instead, he will start the 40th Texas Fall Nationals still in eighth place, 206 markers behind the pacesetting Kalitta.

“Not what we were looking for, obviously,” said the 56-time tour winner.  “We made a solid first (qualifying) run, but we didn’t get it done Friday night when the conditions were best and that kinda changed the game plan.  We didn’t even have lane choice to start the day Sunday but we were lucky enough to get past first round.  We didn’t have anything for Doug, though.

“Just have to get ready for the ‘Stampede of Speed’ and see if we can’t make something happen at the Motorpolex,” said the only driver to have swept the six races in the playoffs.

“It definitely stings,” he said of Sunday’s loss, “but, hopefully, it stings us enough that we’ll start hurtin’ some other people’s feelings instead of them hurtin’ ours.”

Torrence’s No. 9 start Sunday equaled his worst in 15 appearances at the track across the river from downtown St. Louis, a track on which he was the race winner in 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2022 and on which he lost the title to his dad, Billy, in 2019.

Now the focus shifts to the Motorplex, another track on which Team CAPCO has been extremely successful.