Torrence Out in Quarterfinals

After illuminating seven straight win lights, the streak ran out for Steve Torrence and his CAPCO Contractors Top Fuel Toyota in the second round of Sunday’s 15th American Rebel Light Beer Virginia Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park. 

Trying to win back-to-back Mission Foods tour events for the first time in four years, the four-time Top Fuel world champion lost Sunday to Justin Ashley, whom he defeated two weeks ago to win the Super Grip Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol, Tenn.

After a solid opening round 3.920 at 321.12 miles per hour that powered him past Josh Hart, the 42-year-old Texan slowed to 4.568 seconds against Ashley and will move on to this week’s 18th Summit Racing Equipment Nationals at Norwalk, Ohio in seventh place in points.

It was a disappointing result for the 56-time tour winner who, during qualifying, flashed the form and consistency that from 2017 through 2021 made him and his team almost unbeatable.  

“Obviously, we’re still a work in progress,” he said.  “I thought we had it going on, but you just can’t make any mistakes out there.  We obviously still have some things to clean up, but it was nice to go down the track every run in qualifying.  We ran 3.88, 3.88 and 3.87 and then followed up in the first round with that ’92.  That’s the kind of consistency we’ve been looking for and shows that at least we’re headed in the right direction.” 

After winning four rounds on the way to victory in the NHRA tour event at Bristol, Torrence followed up with a Saturday win in the Mission Foods 2Fast/2Tasty Challenge bonus race that matches the semifinalists from the most recent event in the series. That gave him six straight win lights; Sunday’s first round win over Hart was No. 7.

“It’s been fun,” Torrence said of the little mini-win streak.  “I was beginning to wonder if we had forgotten how to do it.  Nice to know we haven’t, but we’re still not where we want to be.  We’ll keep working at it.”