NHRA

Brainerd: GM Racing Saturday summary

Greg Anderson's Pontiac GTO on the Pro Stock Pole for Sunday's Lucas Oil Nationals Defending Champ Kurt Johnson has Quickest Chevy Cobalt in Tight 16-Car Field BRAINERD, Minn., Aug. 12, 2006 - Greg Anderson captured his eighth Pro Stock pole of ...

Edited: Aug 14, 2006, 12:21 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Greg Anderson's Pontiac GTO on the Pro Stock Pole for Sunday's Lucas Oil Nationals

Defending Champ Kurt Johnson has Quickest Chevy Cobalt in Tight 16-Car Field

BRAINERD, Minn., Aug. 12, 2006 - Greg Anderson captured his eighth Pro Stock pole of the season during qualifying today for the 25th annual Lucas Oil Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway. The driver of the Summit Racing Pontiac GTO recorded the quickest e.t. in three of the four rounds of time trials including a run of 6.736 seconds during this morning's session to earn the No. 1 starting position for the second consecutive event.

"The performance and consistency of this Summit Racing Pontiac goes to the guys that work on this car, day in and day out, at the shop and at the track," said Anderson. "I can't say enough about them and the job they do. I do know they don't receive enough credit. We always say these races are won or lost at the shop. After Sonoma, we were able to get in four really good days back in Mooresville (N.C.) to work on everything, and I think we actually helped ourselves a little bit. We've certainly come into this race with a lot of confidence, especially after the little bit of testing we were able to do at the track by the shop."

It marks the second time that the three-time NHRA champion and native of nearby Duluth has been No. 1 qualifier for the Lucas Oil Nationals - his first being in 2004. It was also Anderson's 48th career pole and the 12th time this season that a Pontiac has started raceday from the No. 1 spot.

"I would have to say that this track definitely has a home-track feel," said Anderson. "Not only do Jason (Line) and I have a lot of family and friends here, we have developed a large number of fans over the years. This always gives you extra incentive to win. You want to do it for the hometown folks."

Anderson's teammate, and points leader Jason Line will start raceday from the No. 2 spot. His Summit Racing Pontiac GTO had the quickest run of the final qualifying session and posted a 6.753 e.t. at 203.06 mph.

"Our Summit Racing Pontiac was the quickest in the last session today," said Line. "That certainly has me excited about going into eliminations tomorrow. I drove pretty well, which gives me confidence. I hope that Greg (Anderson) and I both get to the finals. That would be a fun race. It's going to be a tough day tomorrow. Everybody else is fast too. We're just a tick above them which means we must drive well and the car must also be at its best."

Tom Martino is qualified fourth in a GTO after posting a 6.762 e.t. at 203.16 mph.

Defending event champion Kurt Johnson has the quickest Chevy Cobalt in the 16-car field in the No. 7 position. The ACDelco Chevrolet driver chalked up a 6.767-second run at 203.68 mph, a speed good enough to edge out fellow Cobalt driver Tom Lee's identical 6.767 e.t. at 203.25 mph.

"Coming here with a completely new and untested racecar, our first goal was simply to qualify," said Johnson. "Having accomplished that, we will now concentrate on making our ACDelco Cobalt go faster. We know what areas we have to work on, which makes it somewhat easier. It's really quick in the first sixty feet, which we are extremely pleased with, but now we have to work on getting it better in second and third gear."

Mike Edwards and Jim Yates are qualified ninth and 10th in Pontiac GTOs. Warren Johnson and Greg Stanfield are 11th and 12th in GTOs, and Dave Connolly and Dave Howard are 13th and 14th in Chevy Cobalts. It was a tight 16-car qualifying field separated by just .049 of a second.

In Funny Car, Tony Pedregon's Q Racing Chevy Monte Carlo qualified in the No. 2 position by running 4.773 seconds at 321.04 mph. That was an identical elapsed time to John Force's pole setting run, but Force had the faster speed at 323.74 mph.

-credit: gm racing

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Brainerd: Tom Bradford Friday summary

Next article Brainerd: Bob Vandergriff Jr Saturday summary

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

NASCAR explains why they penalized Zane Smith after latest clash with Carson Hocevar

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Phoenix II

11 h

NASCAR explains why they penalized Zane Smith after latest clash with Carson Hocevar

Porsche boss Laudenbach says he is "not happy" with how things were handled by IMSA in 2026

IMSA

IMSA IMSA 11 h

Porsche boss Laudenbach says he is "not happy" with how things were handled by IMSA in 2026

Five things to watch out for at the F1 United States GP

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

United States GP

11 h

Five things to watch out for at the F1 United States GP

KTM sees MotoGP 2027 as a fresh start: “We never had the chance to build a new bike”

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP 12 h

KTM sees MotoGP 2027 as a fresh start: “We never had the chance to build a new bike”

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts