It was an unusual day on Sunday at the Toyo Tires Nationals in Reading, PA. Although mostly sunny
skies had replaced the rains of the previous two days, Pro Stock final eliminations were suddenly
halted midway through the first round due to water seeping up through the track. This caused a
nearly thr ee-hour delay as the NHRA's Safety Safari worked feverishly to restore the racing
surface, during which time conditions completely changed, leaving the six drivers left to run
scrambling to adjust their set-ups accordingly.
After qualifying second, Greg Anderson and his Summit Racing team were among those forced to wait
their turn. However, his patience was rewarded in the first round when Rickie Jones left the
starting line early, handing Anderson the automatic win. Even so, he posted the second-quickest
time of the round at 6.671 seconds with a top speed of 207.27 mph to earn lane choice for his
second round encounter against former Funny Car driver Johnny Gray.
Just as he was for the first round, Anderson was ready at the start, leaving the starting line one
hundredth of second ahead of Gray. =2 0However, his mount was struck by a rare mechanical
malfunction almost immediately, slowing his progress, and allowing his opponent to advance.
"That run was nothing more than a case of bad luck," said Anderson. "It dead-headed and then
jumped out of low gear, and then it shook when I tried to go back in because it was on the rev
limiter. It's one of those things that happens once or maybe twice a year if you're unlucky, and
today just happened to be our turn. There wasn't anything I could have done differently as a
driver, or anything we could change in the transmission to make sure it didn't happen again. The
dogs didn't line up perfectly, and I was done.
"I'm honestly very disappointed that we didn't advance, but I'm equally upset that we were off on
the set-up. Without the mechanical issues, I certainly would have won the round. I left on Johnny
and only needed to run a 6.72 to beat him. However, both Jason (teammate Line) and I missed on the
starting line and didn't run worth a lick. We were decent in qualifying, but for some reason
seemed to take a step backwards today.
"We need to figure out what changes we need to make to these Summit Racing Pontiacs to make them
better, and we will. We know we have some work to do in the next few weeks, but everyone on this
team is committed to getting it right. We're going to find that round peg for that round hole."
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 visit http://www.summitracing.com
