Quarter-Final Finish Has Anderson Looking for Strong Showing in St. Louis 

Event:  27th annual AAA Texas Fall NHRA Nationals

Location: Texas Motorplex, Ennis, Texas

Day/Date: Sunday, September 23, 2012

Summit Racing Pro Stock Camaro driver Greg Anderson came into Sunday’s final eliminations of the AAA Fall NHRA Nationals in Ennis, Tx. cautiously optimistic about his chances.  After all, Anderson had earned the fifth starting position with a 6.571-second elapsed time and a top speed of 211.06 mph, setting the stage for a first-round match-up against noted “leaver” Greg Stanfield.

Fortunately, Anderson proved up to the challenge, combining a .021 light and a 6.592-second, 210.37 mph run to eliminate Stanfield, who posted a .023 reaction time and 6.640-second elapsed time and 208.65 mph run in the losing effort.

However, the KB Racing team had little time to celebrate, as their second-round opponent would be one of the hottest drivers in the category, Vincent Nobile, whose team works in conjunction with current NHRA Championship points leader, Allen Johnson. Despite racing without the luxury of lane choice, Anderson was able to get a slight lead on his rival.  Unfortunately, his 6.603-second, 210.41 mph pass was not enough to hold his opponent’s charge, who used a 6.590-second, 210.21 mph run to edge Anderson by four thousandths of a second.

“As I said in an earlier interview, we are in a position where we’re out of mulligans, and we have to win out from here,” said Anderson. “It’s up to us – if we can be perfect the rest of the way, then I think we’ll have a chance, but if not, someone else may be the champion. We’ll give it all we’ve got and see where we stand.

“The good news is that we’re capable of it.  We’re getting very close on the performance of these new Summit Racing Camaros, but as we saw this weekend, we still have some things to work on, and we ended up on the wrong end of a very close drag race.  One important thing is that these were not the conditions we normally thrive in and we were still competitive.

“Hopefully next week, we’ll get back to conditions that are better suited to our tune-up, allowing us to finally show the performance we are capable of.”