Anderson Qualifies Third in Charlotte the Hard Way

Event:  Fifth annual NHRA Nationals

Location: zMAX Dragway, Concord, N.C.

Day/Date: Saturday, September 15, 2012

The second day of qualifying at the 5th annual NHRA Nationals proved to be quite the experience for Greg Anderson and his Summit Racing team.  With temperatures in the Concord, N.C. area rising and the third qualifying session not scheduled to begin until after noon, there was little chance of challenging for the pole position.  However, Saturday’s runs still proved valuable, as they would provide tuning information which could be used for Sunday’s final eliminations.

After opening with two solid runs on the first day, Anderson came back with a competitive 6.585-second, 211.30 mph on his first attempt on Saturday.  However he was not as fortunate on in the final qualifying session, as smoke erupted from under his car almost immediately due to a rare engine failure, forcing him to shut off early and coast across the line.  Fortunately, his 6.560-second time from Friday night remained his run of record, earning him the third starting position and a first-round encounter with Shane Gray.

“I’m sure we made a few highlight reels with our engine issues in the fourth session, which is never a good thing,” said Anderson. “At KB Racing, we take pride in our engines, and when we lose one like that it’s extremely disappointing.  We have plenty of them, so we will certainly regroup. We’ll put another one in tomorrow and go race, seeing if we can do a better job than we did today.

‘These Summit Racing Camaros are acting like they want to run, but we’re just not getting clean starts. We’re going to keep digging until we get it right in low gear.  Once we do that, I think we can run with any car out there.  It’s just a matter of doing it. Obviously we have a lot of thinking to do overnight, but we have a chance, which all you can ask for.  We’ll come out swinging tomorrow morning, hoping we made the correct changes and run well.

“We’ll forget about the engine blow up for tonight because there’s nothing we can do about it.  When we get back to the shop on Monday, we’ll shed a tear or two and figure out what we need to do better so it doesn’t happen again.  But for right now, we’ll just put another engine in and try and get the chassis set-up right.”