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Pomona, Calif. - The new NHRA POWERade season is underway at Auto Club Raceway and after the first day of time trials for the 47th annual CARQUEST Winternationals, three-time Pro Stock champion Greg Anderson looks just as sharp as he did when he won at this venue last November. Anderson drove his Summit Racing Pontiac GTO to a 6.647 e.t. at 208.33 mph to take the No. 1 qualifying position with three sessions still remaining.
"We won here a couple of months ago and we won here a year ago," said the defending event champion. "This is a great racetrack where we've had a lot of success over the years. It's smooth, downhill, it allows you to run some big speed and Pro Stock racers love big speeds. So far it looks like our Summit Racing Pontiac is okay. We had a good test session last week in Las Vegas, and you're going to see some surprises with some guys we didn't expect to run so good - that's great for the class. It's exciting right now. We're happy with where we are, but these new guys are going to be impressive as well. It's hard to say exactly how things will turn out this weekend but it looks like we're all going to be fast and we'll see what these new cars can do."
Anderson is a two-time winner of the NHRA Winternationals (2004, 2006) and was also the No. 1 qualifier for this event in 2004 and 2006. Both Anderson and teammate Jason Line are running the GM DRCE3 (third generation) in their Pontiac's this weekend.
"This is the first time we've raced with the DRCE3 between the frame rails," said Anderson. "We tested with another one in Las Vegas, things went pretty good, so we slid them in both Jason's and my car and they'll be in the rest of the weekend. We spent a lot of time over the winter building these engines. They're going to be good for us. We thought if we bit the bullet at the end of last year, and got them close to where we were with the other stuff to start the season, then we'd have room to grow with them as the year moved forward. With the way the Countdown to the Championship sets up, you're going to need to peak at the end of the year and that's one of the things we looked at. The DRCE3 has a lot of potential and considering how we did on that first run, maybe we're going to be okay. Being No. 1 - you can't get any better than that. We're in the fight and we have something to race with. Now it's up to the meatheads behind the wheel to do their jobs.
"The DRCE3 is a completely different block, it has completely different cylinder heads with different valve angles, and it's an entirely different deal. We've worked on the '2' for over 10 years now, there's still room to grow with it, but we thought with more of the things we'd like to do with the engine, the '3' gives us more capability. With the way the class is going with the high-revving RPM engines, we think we can run these engines a little higher, and that's why we elected to do it. You'll see more of the GM teams headed in that direction in the near future because the engine is that good."
Anderson leads opening-day qualifiers
Pomona, Calif. - The new NHRA POWERade season is underway at Auto Club Raceway and after the first day of time trials for the 47th annual CARQUEST Winternationals, three-time Pro Stock champion Greg Anderson looks just as sharp as he did when he won at this venue last November. Anderson drove his Summit Racing Pontiac GTO to a 6.647 e.t. at 208.33 mph to take the No. 1 qualifying position with three sessions still remaining.
"We won here a couple of months ago and we won here a year ago," said the defending event champion. "This is a great racetrack where we've had a lot of success over the years. It's smooth, downhill, it allows you to run some big speed and Pro Stock racers love big speeds. So far it looks like our Summit Racing Pontiac is okay. We had a good test session last week in Las Vegas, and you're going to see some surprises with some guys we didn't expect to run so good - that's great for the class. It's exciting right now. We're happy with where we are, but these new guys are going to be impressive as well. It's hard to say exactly how things will turn out this weekend but it looks like we're all going to be fast and we'll see what these new cars can do."
Anderson is a two-time winner of the NHRA Winternationals (2004, 2006) and was also the No. 1 qualifier for this event in 2004 and 2006. Both Anderson and teammate Jason Line are running the GM DRCE3 (third generation) in their Pontiac's this weekend.
"This is the first time we've raced with the DRCE3 between the frame rails," said Anderson. "We tested with another one in Las Vegas, things went pretty good, so we slid them in both Jason's and my car and they'll be in the rest of the weekend. We spent a lot of time over the winter building these engines. They're going to be good for us. We thought if we bit the bullet at the end of last year, and got them close to where we were with the other stuff to start the season, then we'd have room to grow with them as the year moved forward. With the way the Countdown to the Championship sets up, you're going to need to peak at the end of the year and that's one of the things we looked at. The DRCE3 has a lot of potential and considering how we did on that first run, maybe we're going to be okay. Being No. 1 - you can't get any better than that. We're in the fight and we have something to race with. Now it's up to the meatheads behind the wheel to do their jobs.
"The DRCE3 is a completely different block, it has completely different cylinder heads with different valve angles, and it's an entirely different deal. We've worked on the '2' for over 10 years now, there's still room to grow with it, but we thought with more of the things we'd like to do with the engine, the '3' gives us more capability. With the way the class is going with the high-revving RPM engines, we think we can run these engines a little higher, and that's why we elected to do it. You'll see more of the GM teams headed in that direction in the near future because the engine is that good."
