Toyota Gazoo Racing North America NHRA Phoenix Post-Qualifying Report – 04.06.24

ASHLEY WINS WINTERNATIONALS; S. TORRENCE EARNS NO. 1 QUALIFIER IN PHOENIX
Justin Ashley claims 12th Top Fuel win

CHANDLER, Ariz. (April 6, 2024) – Steve Torrence completed a strong two days of qualifying for Team Toyota by earning the No. 1 qualifying spot for the NHRA Arizona Nationals. The Texan laid down a swift 3.678 elapsed time during the Friday evening session to claim the top spot. It’s Torrence’s first No. 1 qualifying position of the season and the 38th of his career.

The final round of qualifying also served as the makeup finals from the Winternationals at Pomona two weeks ago, where Justin Ashley defeated Tony Schumacher in a holeshot win to take his first Wally Trophy of the season. This is the New York native’s 12th win in Top Fuel and 14th overall in his NHRA career.

In Funny Car, J.R. Todd, qualified 5th for tomorrow’s elimination rounds, followed by Ron Capps in 11th and Alexis DeJoria in 15th. Todd also captured the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty victory Saturday by defeating John Force in the first qualifying session.

Toyota Post-Qualifying Recap
NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series
NHRA Arizona Nationals
Firebird Motorsports Park
Race 3 of 20

TOYOTA TOP FUEL QUALIFYING POSITIONS 

TOYOTA FUNNY CAR QUALIFYING POSITIONS 

*= Non-Toyota driver

TOYOTA QUOTES

STEVE TORRENCE, CAPCO Contractors Toyota Top Fuel Dragster, Torrence Racing

TF Qualifying Result: 1st

Take us through your qualifying run this weekend.

“I enjoy racing here. To go out and run well on Friday always is important.  We’ve really worked hard at creating power and running near our career best speed (336.23 mph) shows our progress (but) consistency is still the key.  If we can remain consistent, we will be lethal out here.”

JUSTIN ASHLEY, SCAG Power Equipment Toyota Top Fuel Dragster, SCAG Racing

TF Qualifying Result: 11th

Does this win mean more coming off a holeshot?

“No, I don’t think so. Holeshot or no shot, a win is a win. That seemed like a pretty close drag race. I’ll have to take a look at the slip. First of all, Tony (Schumacher) is a great guy. Great team over there and I have a lot of respect for them. Joe Maynard and that whole operation. But this is the first official Top Fuel win for Randy (Gloede), Maria (Oldenburg) and the whole team at Metal Craft of Mayville and SCAG Power Equipment. We are out here because of all of the SCAG users, all of the SCAG dealers and distributors that let us come out here and do what we love. Thank you for all that you do. Mike Green (crew chief) and Tommy DeLago (co-crew chief) have been fighting this race car and worked so hard. From top to bottom, this team has done a great job. Just to turn on a win light for everyone at Toyota, Phillips, Lucas Oil, Mac Tools. What a blessing it is to be here. We couldn’t finish in Pomona, but it’s still a Winternationals Wally Trophy and I couldn’t be happier.”

J.R TODD, DHL Toyota GR Supra Funny Car, Kalitta Motorsports

FC Qualifying Result: 5th

Do you think the win in the #2Fast2Tasty challenge provides momentum for the weekend?

“Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s weird to say we’ve been struggling so far this year, but we have been struggling to get down the track and make clean runs. I haven’t really been consistent, but we’ve had luck on our side coming up to this race. And then yesterday, our gameplan was just to go from A to B and make sure we had a clean run to start off the weekend. The 3.923 was a good run. When you see 3.800 times out there, you get a little greedy. But honestly, it turned out to be a pretty good run and put us in a good spot for Sunday, even though there are never any easy draws on Sunday. Yeah, we’ve made three good runs and we were fortunate to win the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty deal. Thanks to Mission Foods for putting up the extra money and bonus points. It’s always good to have those points in your back pocket later in the year when it mattered.”

About Toyota 

Toyota (NYSE:TM), creator of the Prius hybrid and the Mirai fuel cell vehicle, is committed to building vehicles for the way people live through our Toyota and Lexus brands, and directly employs more than 63,000 people in North America (more than 49,000 in the U.S.).

Over the past 65 years, Toyota has assembled nearly 45 million cars and trucks in North America at the company’s 13 manufacturing plants. By 2025, the company’s 14th plant in North Carolina will begin to manufacture automotive batteries for electrified vehicles.

Through our more than 1,800 North American dealerships (nearly 1,500 in the U.S.), Toyota sold more than 2.4 million cars and trucks (more than 2.1 million in the U.S.) in 2022, of which, nearly one quarter were electrified vehicles (full battery, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell).