Anderson Retains Points Lead after Seattle with Quick Summit Racing Camaro
SEATTLE, Wash., August 9, 2015 – Greg Anderson had a strong car in the first round of eliminations at the 28th annual NHRA Northwest Nationals, and the driver of the red Summit Racing Chevrolet Camaro truly felt that he could take it all the way to the winner’s circle and claim a fourth win at Pacific Raceways. Unfortunately, that was not the end result. Even so, Anderson closed out the strenuous Western Swing with the points lead in hand and his position secured in NHRA’s 2015 Mello Yello Drag Racing Series Countdown to the Championship.
Starting from the No. 4 position, Anderson was steady in his run down the quarter-mile dragstrip to put an end to V. Gaines’ day. Anderson was .038 at the starting line to Gaines’ .005, but he quickly grabbed the upper hand as his opponent fell into tire shake. The winning time on the scoreboard was a 6.502-second pass at 212.29, the third quickest elapsed time of the round, to Gaines’ 18.45.
Anderson advanced to a second-round meeting with Shane Gray, and although they were just .004-second apart as they launched from the starting line, it quickly turned into a battle of who could tame a beast better as they both fell into tire shake. Gray was the first to get his car to calm, and he moved ahead for a 6.739, 210.93 win over Anderson’s 14.840.
“We just overestimated the racetrack the second round,” said Anderson. “This was the hottest the track got all weekend, and the Summit Racing team just didn’t make big enough moves. Our Chevy Camaro shook the tire and spun real hard – we missed it on that one, but I also could have done a better job driving. I could have got the thing shifted and tried to save the run. I didn’t catch it in time, and I wasn’t able to do that. We definitely dropped the ball in the second round, but we also learned some things on all four of the KB Racing Camaros. We were able to make them run better as the weekend went on, and that’s the positive. The negative is that we didn’t go far and get the trophy on Sunday.
“The bottom line is that this was a learning weekend for Team Summit, and what we learned will help us down the road. We will look forward to Brainerd, and we’ll get home as quick as we can so that we can do as much work as possible in the next week. Then we’ll go to Brainerd with our equipment freshened and with fresh minds. We plan to have a good weekend there. This is going to be a very, very busy week – but that’s good. The KB Racing team is looking forward to it and can’t wait to work on our stuff. That’s what we love to do, and after three weeks on the road, it’s time to get home and go to work.”