Greg Anderson completed a racer’s dream on Sunday, capturing the Pro Stock title at his primary sponsor’s race, the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals in Atlanta, Ga. Starting from the third position, he defeated Greg Stanfield, Steve Kent and Allen Johnson in the early rounds before squaring off against his teammate and No. 1 qualifier Jason Line in a repeat of last year’s final round.
Running without lane choice and facing a quicker opponent, Anderson knew he would need to gain an edge in order to give himself a chance at his third win of the season. Attacking the starting line, he left five hundredths of a second ahead and never looked back, using a 6.649-second, 208.26 mph run to hold off his stable mate’s 6.618-second, 209.62 mph pass. This was Anderson’s 73rd win of his career, third of the 2012 season and fourth at Atlanta Dragway.
“I feel like the luckiest guy out here today, because this was not a typical win for this Summit Racing team,” said Anderson. “I didn’t have the best car, and I didn’t have my best day of driving, but we kept digging, working to get better with every run. As a result, we made fewer mistakes than our competition, and made it to the final against our teammate, which is, of course, the ideal scenario at your sponsor’s race.
“I’m not sure what happened to Jason in the final, but he apparently made a mistake, allowing me to get a jump at the starting line. My car then made a very nice run, and I was able to hold him off. For whatever reason, the good Lord was shining on me today. I am very proud to have Summit Racing Equipment on the side of our car, and hope we made them proud today.”
Anderson was quick to credit the KB Racing team and its owner for the successful weekend. In one of the sport’s most competitive classes, they placed three cars in the top four positions in qualifying, and delivered an equally impressive performance on race day, with all three advancing to the semifinals before the all-Summit Racing championship round. In addition, he acknowledged the companies whose participation allows the team to compete at such a high level.
“Obviously, as a team we are very happy with today’s results, putting three cars in the semifinals and two in the final,” said Anderson. “At a Summit event, it just doesn’t get any better than that. The way this team is right now, if one car has an off race, we still have two that can go rounds and win races. That doesn’t happen very often with multicar teams, but this truly is one team with three cars, with everyone rowing the boat in the same direction.
“That is the one thing about this team of which I am proudest, and it all goes back to the people on this crew, and our team owner Ken Black. He is working so hard at his rehabilitation in order to get back out here with us that we just want to keep digging deeper to make him proud. This is a tough, tough class, one where anyone can win on a given weekend, so we feel fortunate to have won as many as we have so far this season.
“We also couldn’t do this without the support of several outstanding companies, including Summit Racing Equipment, Chevrolet, Red Line Oil, Cometic Gaskets, Mac Tools, PAC Valve Springs, Wilson Manifolds, Diamond Pistons, K&N Filters, Speed Dawg Shift Knobs and many others. Their involvement with our team makes this all possible, and I’m glad we were able to take them back to the winner’s circle today.
“We have a weekend at home before heading to Topeka and a lot of work to be done before then. The entire team will be driving back to North Carolina tonight and will be back at the shop tomorrow, getting ready for the next race as well as working on our new Camaro. Somewhere in there we’ll take a little time to enjoy this win, but our focus has already turned towards getting the next one.”
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