Anderson Scrambles to Runner-Up Finish in Sonoma
Event: 25th annual NHRA Sonoma Nationals
Location: Sonoma Raceway, Sonoma, California
Day/Date: Sunday, July 29th, 2012
Greg Anderson and the Summit Racing team continued their strong 2012 campaign, scoring a runner-up finish in Sunday’s final eliminations of the NHRA Sonoma Nationals in Sonoma, Calif.. Starting from the sixth position, Anderson defeated Ron Krisher, Erica Enders and Mike Edwards in the early rounds before squaring off against No. 1 qualifier Allen Johnson in the final.
Facing the combination of an apparent performance disadvantage and a lack of lane choice, Anderson knew he would need every possible advantage in order to secure the 75th win of his career. Reacting almost instinctively to the starting line Christmas Tree, the four-time champion used a near-perfect .001 reaction time to gain a slight edge. Unfortunately, his 6.573-second, 210.93 mph pass was not enough to hold off us his rival’s 6.542-second, 211.76 mph charge. Although disappointed to have missed out on the win, Anderson admitted that it had still been a good day for his KB Racing crew.
“To be honest, we made it to the final today based on some decent performance and a lot of good luck,” said Anderson. “Once there, we were in the unusual position of being the underdog, which is something this KB Racing team does not really enjoy, but that Mopar is fast right now and not making any mistakes. I know with some time and testing we should be able to gain on him and give him a run, but to do that we have to learn a little more about these Summit Racing Camaros.
“As good as the drivers are in this class, nine times out of ten you’re not going to make several hundredths up on the tree, which is what we needed to do. That’s why we made wholesale changes between every run trying to find some added performance. In hindsight, our run in the first round might have been our best one at this moment, and something we should have stuck with, but when you’re behind, you make moves you might not make otherwise, but that is going to happen when you’re in test mode.
“We’ll take what we learned today and see if we can figure out what worked and go in that direction when we get to Seattle. We’re going to keep digging until we get back to the level of performance we expect from these cars and this team.”