Greg Anderson Las Vegas Saturday report

Anderson Qualifies Fifth in Las Vegas

Greg Anderson

Photo by: Ted Rossino

Qualifying for the Big O Tires NHRA Nationals in Las Vegas, Nevada proved to be quite a roller coaster ride for Greg Anderson and the Summit Racing team. Throughout the course of the two days they balanced competitive runs with the loss of one attempt due to a mechanical issue which resulted in the loss of critical tuning data. Even so, they were able to post a best elapsed time of 6.633-seconds with a top speed of 208.14 mph to claim the fifth starting position for Sunday’s final eliminations.

However, heading into his first-round match-up against No. 12 qualifier Steve Kent, the four-time champion knows that they will need to produce a more consistent performance in order to defend his win at this event from a year ago, with the team looking no further than the other side of the KB Racing pit area for guidance.

“Our goal is to get my Summit Racing Pontiac running closer to Jason’s,” said Anderson. “Naturally, since we are operating under one roof, they should be, but mine is a little off compared to his at the moment, and we need to figure out why.

“On the positive side, my car has shown that it will run, but we unfortunately lost valuable data that we can’t get back by missing that one run this morning. It’s costly, because you want to get as many runs as you can so you can learn about the car and the track, but we’ll just have to find a way to overcome it. We need to study hard and give the car what it’s asking for and let it go run.

“If we were racing anywhere else but Las Vegas, I would probably be sad and maybe a little worried right now, but I’m not, and that’s because Ken (team owner Black) is here with us. No matter what happens, he’s still wearing a smile after each run, doing what he can to cheer us up, so I can’t possibly be down. I thank the Lord he’s here, and I know he’s going to get me in the game tomorrow, and I’ll have a good shot at winning. It’s really that simple. This is a big weekend for us, and we want to make the most of it.”