After losing a motor on their last qualifying run on Saturday afternoon, Greg Anderson and the Summit Racing team entered Sunday’s final eliminations of the Mopar Mile-High Nationals with a little bit of uncertainty. Even though the KB Racing crew had replaced the broken power plant with an equally strong piece, they were still battling to find the right tune-up for running in the mile-high altitude at Bandimere Speedway.
In the opening round, the KB Racing crew continued to make forward progress, with Anderson combining a four hundredths of a second starting line advantage and a 7.021-second, 195.73 mph run to eliminate Rodger Brogdon. His reward for this solid effort was a second-round encounter with No. 1 qualifier Allen Johnson, who had won the past two runnings of this event.
Once again, the four-time champion elevated his game, making his best pass of weekend at 6.986-seconds with a top speed of 195.70 mph. Unfortunately, his opponent responded with the quickest pass of the weekend, a 6.955-second clocking that put an early end to Anderson’s day.
“We just ran out of time this weekend,” said Anderson. “Throughout qualifying, we had been working to get a decent handle on our tune-up for these difficult conditions, and although we seemed to be slowly creeping up on it, we were still missing something. We did come back today and make a good move with my Summit Racing Pontiac, but came up a bit short in the second round.
“Racing here on the mountain is just a tough deal, and Mike (eventual winner Edwards) and Allen (runner-up Johnson) have obviously learned something about what it takes to run here, so my hat’s off to them for doing a great job. I must admit that I’m looking forward to going back to racing at sea level next weekend in Sonoma, because I know we will have a good package there for our Summit Racing Pontiacs. However, this race counts just as much as the others, so we want to win it just as bad, so we need to keep working on our set-up for racing in the altitude.
“Bandimere Speedway is a beautiful facility in a great area of the country, and the Bandimeres are tremendous people. I love everything about racing here, except the fact that we have yet to figure out how to run here. It’s obviously disappointing to have our day end when it did, but we’ll take what we learned here this weekend and use it towards figuring this place out so we can come back stronger next year. But for now, our sights are set on Sonoma next weekend.”
In the opening round, the KB Racing crew continued to make forward progress, with Anderson combining a four hundredths of a second starting line advantage and a 7.021-second, 195.73 mph run to eliminate Rodger Brogdon. His reward for this solid effort was a second-round encounter with No. 1 qualifier Allen Johnson, who had won the past two runnings of this event.
Once again, the four-time champion elevated his game, making his best pass of weekend at 6.986-seconds with a top speed of 195.70 mph. Unfortunately, his opponent responded with the quickest pass of the weekend, a 6.955-second clocking that put an early end to Anderson’s day.
“We just ran out of time this weekend,” said Anderson. “Throughout qualifying, we had been working to get a decent handle on our tune-up for these difficult conditions, and although we seemed to be slowly creeping up on it, we were still missing something. We did come back today and make a good move with my Summit Racing Pontiac, but came up a bit short in the second round.
“Racing here on the mountain is just a tough deal, and Mike (eventual winner Edwards) and Allen (runner-up Johnson) have obviously learned something about what it takes to run here, so my hat’s off to them for doing a great job. I must admit that I’m looking forward to going back to racing at sea level next weekend in Sonoma, because I know we will have a good package there for our Summit Racing Pontiacs. However, this race counts just as much as the others, so we want to win it just as bad, so we need to keep working on our set-up for racing in the altitude.
“Bandimere Speedway is a beautiful facility in a great area of the country, and the Bandimeres are tremendous people. I love everything about racing here, except the fact that we have yet to figure out how to run here. It’s obviously disappointing to have our day end when it did, but we’ll take what we learned here this weekend and use it towards figuring this place out so we can come back stronger next year. But for now, our sights are set on Sonoma next weekend.”
