While he wasn’t behind the wheel for any of the big shows, Torok wheeled the No. 99 entry at Lorain County several times during the latter stages of the season, after Koyan took “a bit of a leap of faith” on the young upstart driver. Torok quickly repaid that belief with his big victory.
“I know Dave wasn’t really expecting me to go out and win just like that,” Torok admitted with a laugh. “My dad even told me how lucky I was that the Koyans would trust a 14-year-old to get into their sprint car, so I’m just trying to appreciate each opportunity I’ve gotten up to now and make the most of it.”
Now that they’ve gotten the bugs worked out of the car, Torok is eager for the races ahead and hopes to be back behind the wheel of Koyan’s sprinter sooner rather than later next season.
“All year, we’ve had trouble with the car pushing really bad. Other drivers who have gotten into my car said that they couldn’t get a hold of it, either,” Torok explained. “We finally figured something out at the end of the summer, though, that gave us a lot of the speed we were missing.
“It took a lot of work, but to win in my second sprint car race … man, that’s something.”
While Torok isn’t completely sure what’s ahead for his career, he anticipates a much heavier schedule at Lorain County next season.
If all goes according to plan, he admitted there could be a chance of making his Must See Racing debut at one of the smaller tracks on the series calendar next year as well, though that’s a bit of a longer shot.
“We’re probably going to be running the crate sprint again (next year), and as much as I’d like to do it, I probably won’t get into a 410 for a couple years yet,” Torok said. “I keep talking to my dad about wanting to come to the Must See races in my (crate) car … especially after watching my friend J.J. (Henes) do that at Midvale (Speedway) in July and nearly get a top-10 finish out of it.
“We’ll just see how things all shake out,” he continued. “At 14, racing a sprint car at all is a big step for someone like me to make, but I’ve stuck to my goals and I’m so blessed to be in the position that I’m in now and surrounded by the people that are helping me achieve what I have in racing.
“It’s really special, for sure.”
