Anderson in the Top Half and Improving at Royal Purple Raceway
Event: 26th annual O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA SpringNationals
Location: Royal Purple Raceway, Houston, Texas
Day/Date: Friday, April 26, 2013
Summit Racing Pro Stock driver Greg Anderson made two respectable runs on the first day of qualifying at the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA SpringNationals at Royal Purple Raceway in Houston to situate himself in the top half of the field and lay down a firm foundation to build upon.
In the first session, Anderson claimed a coveted bonus point with a third-quickest 6.594 at 211.13 mph. In the later evening session, the KB Racing driver wheeled the silver Summit Racing Chevy Camaro to a 6.579 at 211.16 mph that would garner the provisional No. 6 position heading into day two of the event.
His quickest run was several positions further down in the qualifying order than Anderson would typically prefer, but his 6.579 was just a hundredth off of the No. 1 spot as the entire field worked to find the right combination for the warm, thick air.
“This is the first time that we’ve run in the heat and humidity all season,” said Anderson. “There has been really, really good air and it’s been dry where we’ve been so far with low vapor pressure and low humidity. This was the first real dose of humidity, and today was decent for us. Everyone in the class was real bunched together, and nobody is really stepping apart from the field like we’ve seen the last few races. Seems like the heat and humidity has been a bit of an equalizer.
“We all have some learning to do, and we have to tune on our engines a little bit to make them run better in these conditions. But we have two decent runs down the racetrack without any major problems, and we have something to tune on. We got better on the second run from the first, so we just need to continue in that direction. We’ll tune on the Summit Racing Chevy Camaro and see if we can make her run better tomorrow. The two runs we made today – both with my car and with my teammate Jason Line’s Summit Racing Camaro – they weren’t that far off. We have something to work with.”
