Anderson Grabs Track Record for Speed on Friday at Route 66 Nationals
CHICAGO, Ill., July 10, 2015 – The Summit Racing Chevrolet Camaros looked strong on the first day of qualifying at the 18th annual Route 66 NHRA Nationals at Route 66 Raceway, a vast, stadium-style dragstrip located just outside of Chicago. Greg Anderson led the KB Racing team with a set of powerful passes that brought in a slew of bonus marks for the incoming points leader, and the driver of the red Summit Racing Chevrolet Camaro also left the racetrack on the first day of qualifying with a very valuable treasure – the Route 66 Raceway track record for speed.
“That’s pretty cool,” said Anderson, who is one part of the Team Summit duo which currently holds a track record at nine of the racetracks on the 2015 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour. “That means the performance of our Summit Racing Chevys is pretty good. I’m happy with today. We didn’t get the No. 1 qualifier but we were darn close both runs.”
In the first qualifying session in Chicago, Anderson was quick to the finish line with a 6.540-second pass at 211.83 mph. The speed was the fastest of Route 66 Raceway had ever seen in the Pro Stock category, and that would hold true through the end of the first day of qualifying. The pass was the second-quickest overall, bringing in two bonus qualifying points for Anderson and settling him temporarily in the No. 2 position.
Track temperature and weather conditions improved for the second session, and Anderson improved to a 6.533 at 211.30. Again, he was second-quickest of the session and claimed two more of the little points. Anderson is currently No. 3 in the qualifying order.
“We were close, but we missed it a little bit,” said Anderson, who was the No. 1 qualifier in Englishtown just a handful of races ago. “It was a positive day, and we’ll keep fine-tuning on my Summit Racing Camaro. Tomorrow is another day, and we race late again tomorrow so we can still move up. If we don’t, well then we’ll work on ‘er for Sunday. But yes, we’re happy so far. It was a good start and even better than last week, so we definitely made some gains.”
Racing under the lights as the qualifying sessions are scheduled later in the evening in the summer is something that Anderson looks forward to. Last weekend in Norwalk the teams qualified in the cooler evening air, and this weekend again qualifying is taking place later than normal.
“I love racing at night,” said Anderson. “I wish all the races were at night – it’s a lot of fun, and no, we don’t seem to have a perfect combination for the night session yet, but we’ve proven that we have a very good combination for Sunday raceday. That’s great news, and we’ll keep chiseling on our Friday and Saturday night combination. It’s close. We’ll get to work on it a little bit more tomorrow.”