Summit Racing–Anderson Keeps on Climbing in Sonoma

Anderson Keeps on Climbing in Sonoma

SONOMA, Calif., July 26, 2014 – Greg Anderson is fighting hard, and he has the perfect weapon with his white Summit Racing Chevrolet Camaro. This weekend’s battle for points is off to a very strong start as qualifying for the 27th annual NHRA Sonoma Nationals concluded with Anderson in the No. 4 spot for his best start of the year, bettering his season-best last weekend in Denver. At Sonoma Raceway, Anderson will square off with Larry Morgan in round one.

Mooresville, N.C.-based Anderson was quickly in a solid position as he launched to a 6.620-second pass at 208.94 mph in the first round of qualifying in toasty warm Sonoma conditions. The four-time Sonoma Nationals winner improved by a bunch in the second round of qualifying, racing to a 6.562, 210.93, but the third round of qualifying and first session on Saturday was where he really began to shine. Anderson rocketed to a 6.551 at 211.93 mph that was second quickest of the session. He finished qualifying on a 6.574, 211.46 to solidify the No. 4 start.

“We’re progressing, we’re definitely progressing,” said Anderson. “We’re better than we were, and for the last two races the Summit Racing team has definitely been improving. In Denver, my teammate Jason Line was No. 1 and here he is No. 2, and in Denver I was No. 5 and here No. 4. We’re certainly going in the right direction.

“I think we were a little disappointed after that last run because we felt it should have been quicker. We slowed down a little bit, but we made some changes before the run that were obviously the wrong way to go. Now we know, so we will be able to go in the other direction for tomorrow. We’re really happy and looking forward to Sunday out here in Sonoma. This has been a very good race to us in the past, and hopefully we will see that continue.”

Temperatures for Saturday were expected to be quite warm, but racing in the heat of the day was not quite what the Summit Racing team had expected. Sunday predictions are logged, but Anderson concedes that you really can’t count on the forecast.

“It’s funny out there,” he said. “It’s hard to tell what the weather is going to be. Today’s forecast kind of missed, and it was a lot nicer than was expected. We’re hoping the same thing happens tomorrow, the weatherman is wrong again, and things go in the good direction like they did today. That just makes these cars a lot happier – and it makes the drivers a lot happier too.

“No matter what, the confidence is definitely building here in the Summit Racing camp, and we’re absolutely getting closer to winning races and deserving to win them. We’ve needed to have a car that was capable of winning races, and I think we’re seeing that now. We’re progressing, and we have to be happy with that. Tomorrow, Jason and I are on opposite sides of the ladder – and it’s crazy because all through qualifying it seemed like no matter what we did we were stuck that way. We kept running different, running better, but we kept ending up on the same side. That last run, though, we got switched around and that’s very good. If we do our job tomorrow, we could put two Summit Racing Chevys in the final round. That’s exactly what we want. It will be interesting to see how things go.”