Qualifying for the NHRA Northwest Nationals in Seattle, WA came to a close on Saturday, with the
primary topic of discussion being the unusually warm conditions and how they affected the
racetrack. Although it was slightly cooler at Pacific Raceways than it was on Friday, resulting in
quicker elapsed times for virtually everyone in the Pro Stock pit area, many drivers still found
themselves fighting to maintain traction on the hot and slippery surface.
On paper, it would seem Greg Anderson and the Summit Racing team had no issues with the challenging
surface, as they took advantage of the improved conditions to record a 6.582-second time and 210.18
mph top speed, good enough for the third starting position in Sunday's final eliminations.
However, the North Carolina resident readily admitted they too were fighting to find the proper
tune-up to maximize their performance, and looked for some cooperation from an unlikely source -
Mother Nature.
"It's fun to race up here," said Anderson. "The weather is very pleasant, and you're not sweating
like you're in the Louisiana bayou, which is all great. Unfortunately, in something I believe is
pretty uncommon for Seattle, we've had nothing but sun for the last two days, which this racetrack
doesn't particularly like, so we're struggling a bit trying to gain traction.
"The air and our power levels are great here, the best we have had in a while, but to this point we
haven't been able to manufacture enough traction to take advantage of it. As a result, we're a
little off with our cars and they aren't running what they should be. We're hoping we get a couple
clouds tomorrow, as long as they don't leak, because that would help us tremendously in the
traction department.
"It is supposed to be a little cooler tomorrow, which we hope will include a few clouds, because
that will make these cars really fly; If it doesn't happen, we'll have our work cut out for us, so
we'll keep going down this path, doing what we can to manufacture traction with our Summit Racing
Pontiacs. We're getting better, but we're still not happy.
"Right now we're blaming our problems on the track, but it's up to us to find a way to make them
work better, getting our cars hooked up to the racetrack. That's our goal and we're going to keep
swinging. We've got two good cars - we just have to get them over the hump to where they're great.
I think we're close, which should make tomorrow very interesting."
Established in 1968, Summit Racing Equipment is the leading high performance parts and accessories
company. Summit Racing offers the largest selection, lowest prices, and best customer service in
the high performance industry via catalogs, Internet, and Retail Super Stores. The company is
headquartered in Tallmadge, Ohio with retail locations in Tallmadge, Ohio; Sparks, Nevada; and
McDonough, Georgia. For more information, please visithttp://www.summitracing.com
