Drag Illustrated Issue 140, January 2019 | Page 69
THE
CHAMPIONS
ISSUE
B
abe Ruth said, “It’s hard to beat a person
who never gives up.” This is especially true in drag
racing, a sport that traditionally rewards those com-
petitors who get knocked down and keep coming back
to the starting line for another shot at a win light. Be it
a bracket racer who buys back and goes on to win the
race after slipping up in the first round or a big-name
professional racer who suffers a devastating late-season crash and
spares no expense to redeem himself the following year, drag racing
is the ultimate comeback sport.
That much was evident this year in a number of cases across drag
racing’s numerous forms. Steve Torrence, who was denied a nearly
guaranteed Top Fuel world championship in 2017 when he experi-
D r a g Il l u s t r a t e d . c o m
enced a violent crash with just two races left in the season, rallied his
Capco Contractors team to go undefeated in the 2018 Countdown to
the Championship, an unprecedented feat. J.R. Todd, who’s staged a
series of comebacks that you’ll read about on the next several pages,
earned a Funny Car world title in just his second season in the class.
Chaz Silance bounced back from a forgettable first half of the season
to nearly win out the second half of his PDRA Elite Top Dragster
season, joining his father as a PDRA world champion in the process.
Not all of the stories in our 2018 Champions Issues are epic tales
of come-from-behind victories. Others feature straight-up dominant
performances and displays of consistent hard work and focus. In each of
these features we hope you’ll find a relatable theme that might inspire
a similar championship run in 2019 and beyond.
69
Dr ag Illustr ated