By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Four-time Top Fuel world champion Steve Torrence made the only run in the 3.70s on Friday night at Heartland Motorsports Park, earning the provisional No. 1 spot at the Menards NHRA Nationals presented by PetArmor.
Four-time Top Fuel champ Steve Torrence talks to the media Friday night at Heartland Motorsports Park. [Photo by Rick Peterson/TSN]
Torrence recorded a run of 3.764 seconds at 326.24 miles per hour in his 11,000-horsepower Capco Contractors/Toyota dragster to close out Friday's lone round of qualifying in a side-by-side clash with points leader Justin Ashley.
If it holds through Saturday's final two qualifying rounds, Torrence, who is currently second in points behind Ashley, would notch his first No. 1 qualifier this season and No. 35 of his career.
“This is a huge confidence-booster, just for getting the momentum going early in the weekend and getting us set up to go into (Saturday) for the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge,” Torrence said. “We needed to have a good qualifying run tonight to set us up to go into that race tomorrow with a competitive car and try to compete for those three points.
“That's going to be huge going into the Countdown, where we're able to kind of cut that lead down or see if we can cut it to nothing between now and then with Justin Ashley being so far ahead of us.
"These guys, we've been working hard. Everybody is putting in a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears in this thing.”
Clay Millican, who has a pair of wins this season, is currently second with his 3.813 at 316.15 and Ashley’s run of 3.818 at 322.88 puts him third. Ashley currently has five victories this season.
Top Fuel qualifying continues at 3 p.m. Saturday, with eliminations getting under way at 11 a.m. on Sunday.
MENARDS NHRA NATIONALS
At Heartland Motorsports Park
FRIDAY QUALIFYING RESULTS
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