Top Fuel driver Steve Torrence enters this weekend’s Lucas Oil Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona on top of the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series world.
He has won six of the first nine events in the NHRA drag racing series in 2021. He is riding a three-race winning streak and coming off an impressive run at Sonoma Raceway in Northern California last weekend.
He has a dominating 349-point lead in the NHRA Top Fuel standings after nine events. And it doesn’t look like his Torrence Racing team is ready to slow down heading into Pomona for an unseasonably altered trip to Southern California. Auto Club Raceway is expected to present an array of new challenges and Torrence isn’t dropping his guard despite his team’s recent success.
“I don’t expect the rest of the season to stay like this,” Torrence said. “Eventually they’ll get it figured out and the competition will be pretty tough.”
Auto Club Raceway in Pomona traditionally hosts two NHRA events, the season opener Winternationals in February and the Auto Club Finals in November. But because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Pomona races in February were postponed and scheduled for the last weekend in July. The Auto Club Finals are still on the schedule in their regular spot in November.
Racing at Auto Club Raceway in the middle of summer will present some new challenges. The weather, the track conditions, the crowds and the anticipation that normally lead up to the races in Pomona are all different this weekend. One of the big changes is qualifying for the Sunday elimination rounds will be done on Friday and Saturday nights. But the elimination rounds on Sunday will be during the day. The track temperatures alone will make it challenging to prepare for each run.
Torrence and his team are making adjustments.
“I assume it’s going to be very slick and tricky,” Torrence said. “When we run there, the conditions are conducive to go quick, to go fast, and it’s cool. That’s not going to be the case now. We have no data on this race track in these conditions.”
Antron Brown, who is one of the few Top Fuel drivers to knock out Torrence in 2021, is in second place in the Top Fuel standings, with Brittany Force, who has two runner-up finishes, in third.
“We’re challenged week in and week out. It’s the same guys and girls that it is every week,” Torrence said. “It’s Brittany Force. It’s Leah Pruett. Antron Brown, Doug Kalitta, Shawn Langdon. No one has really gone out and set the world on fire. Everybody is struggling a little bit and we’ve been able to capitalize on that. It’s been in our benefit so far.”
Yorba Linda’s Brittany Force has been knocking on the door, seeking her first win of the season in the past two events. In Sonoma, after posting the fastest run in the first round of eliminations, she smoked the tires on her car in the second round and was eliminated. It was a mistake she said her team won’t make again.
“We’re getting close. I definitely think a win is right around the corner for us,” Brittany Force said. “But I’ve been saying that all year long. Our team, our performance, everything’s there, we’re No. 1 qualifier. We’ve just been having a little bit of bad luck on race day it seems.”
The Funny Car division is as competitive as ever. Bob Tasca III leads the Funny Car standings after nine events. He has a slim 21-point lead over Matt Hagan, who reached the final race at Sonoma Raceway.
Tasca was eliminated in the first round in Sonoma. He said his team tried some different set-ups and treated the races as a test session to some degree. There isn’t a lot of time to test and experiment at this point in the season and Tasca’s team is working toward preparing for the Countdown to the Championship, the NHRA playoffs.
“The bottom line is that it is a long season and you gotta go through the ups and the downs,” Tasca said. “We’ve had a lot of ups, a couple wins, final rounds, bunch of semifinals. Now we’re going into Pomona, where this is going to be a very unusual race, conditions we’ve never seen before. We’ve never run Pomona at night and then have to run it during the day on Sunday. It’s going to be a very challenging race to say the least. We’re confident we’ll bounce back.”
Robert Hight from Yorba Linda made the most impressive move in the standings. He won his second Funny Car event of the season at Sonoma Raceway and jumped from sixth place into third place in the standings, 40 points out of first.
“I’m excited about coming to Pomona,” Hight said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been here. It’s our home track. We all live in Southern California. It’d sure be nice to carry that momentum and get another win, especially at this time of the year.”
The ageless John Force, also from Yorba Linda, is in the mix for the top spot in the Funny Car standings too, in fourth place and 52 points out of first.
“We’re all jammed up there within a few rounds,” John Force said. “I’m looking forward to going back to Pomona. It’s been over a year, two years since I’ve been there, a year and a half at least. We’re really lucky with all that’s going on. We want to go there and entertain the fans and get back to my home track.”
By the end of the races in Pomona, the Funny Car standings might look much different.
Greg Anderson enters the races in Pomona as the leader in the NHRA Pro Stock standings with a 135-point lead after the Sonoma races.
Aaron Stanfield, who won the Pro Stock event in Sonoma, knocking out Dallas Glenn in the final, is second in the Pro Stock standings. Stanfield won his first race of the season at Pomona. Anderson has won two NHRA Pro Stock events. Erica Enders, who has won two events, is third in the Pro Stock standings.
Matt Smith leads the Pro Stock Motorcycle standings and has a 170-point lead over Steve Johnson. Smith has won three Pro Stock Motorcycle events in 2021. Panorama City’s Karen Stoffer won the Pro Stock Motorcycle event in Sonoma, her first of the season and her first since 2019. She defeated Andrew Hines in the final round.
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July 29, 2021 at 04:55AM
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NHRA makes rare summer stop at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona - Press-Enterprise
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