SONOMA, Calif. (July 30th, 2016) – Steve Torrence lit up the scoreboard in Friday night’s Q2 session with a national elapsed time record of 3.671 seconds at 326.08 miles per hour. Needless to say, that impressive time kept him at the top of the qualifying order heading into Sunday’s final eliminations. Torrence also picks up his eighth pole position of the 2016 season.
On his team’s dominant qualifying campaign Torrence seemed at a loss for words, but only for a quick moment. “That was nothing less than…I have no words to describe how you go [3.671] in the heat of the day. We haven’t gone a 3.60 ever and we’ve been trying for so long. You come here to Sonoma and just roll them out like they’re giving them away. Like I’ve said all along, I’m the little bulldog that sits at the front of this Mack truck and these guys behind me are the reason that this car can go in and do what it’s done. The Capco boys are walking pretty tall and proud because for a little while we’ll be the national record holder. That’s just the fruits of the labors of these guys working so hard to get this team where it’s at. I couldn’t be more proud of them and representing Capco.”
With his short day in Denver still lingering in the back of his mind, Torrence and team are pulling their bootstraps up for the remainder of the season. “We ran the table on them in qualifying at Denver and just had a snafu with a broken camshaft. We were able to do it again here, we just need to turn these green hats into yellow hats. I’m damn proud of them and that’s eight green hats. We’re gonna start stacking them up. We’re toe-to-toe for business for the rest of this year.”
Not suprisingly, Torrence was unapologetically outspoken about the confidence he has in his Capco crew. “I don’t want to be cocky but we got the best racecar on the block right now. You don’t take anybody lightly, you do your job and race it the way we’ve been doing it. Running it through qualifying, I don’t think anybody can get us.”
Final Eliminations for the NHRA Mello Yello Toyota Sonoma Nationals begin Sunday at 11:00 A.M. PST. Live TV coverage begins at 1:00 P.M. PST on Fox.
