NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Top Fuel No. 1 qualifier Steve Torrence’s Capco team made the tough decision to switch to a backup chassis entering Monday raceday at the Dodge Power Brokers NHRA U.S. Nationals after discovering a small kink in the chassis of their primary car after their final qualifying pass Sunday. 

The chassis that they switched to last went down the track last year in Charlotte with Billy Torrence behind the wheel, but has been both front-halved and back-halved in the meantime. Still, neither Torrence nor assistant crew chief Bobby Lagana Jr. seemed overly fazed by the switch.

“I've got all the faith in the world in those Capco boys," said Torrence. "We could have [switched chassis] between rounds. They did a great job and took a little bit extra time last night checking it over. I sat in it and Lucas [Fabrication] builds the chassis for us and when you get out of one and then the other, you can't even tell the difference. This is the third car that I've driven this year. It doesn't affect me too much. Sometimes they just swap them at the shop and I'll get it in the race track and never even know it's a different car. So that's just a testament to how good Lucas does building these things.

"We'll go ahead and do our best and I'm not at all nervous about it. I mean, it's a good story. It's cool to say, 'Hey, we went No. 1 with this car and we changed it for raceday but I'm confident. [Crew chief] Richard Hogan is a good dude when it's when it's tricky and when you got to navigate one down through there and so I'm just gonna stand on the shoulders of the guys that brought me here."