NHRA

Indy ORP: Greg Anderson final report

Early Exit at U.S. Nationals adds Fuel to Anderson's Competitiv Fir e Greg Anderson's comments at the end of qualifying for the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals proved to be prophetic during Monday's final eliminations at O'Reilly Raceway Park. After ...

Published: Oct 2, 2009, 4:15 PM

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Early Exit at U.S. Nationals adds Fuel to Anderson's Competitiv Fir e

Greg Anderson's comments at the end of qualifying for the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals proved to be prophetic during Monday's final eliminations at O'Reilly Raceway Park. After earning the fifth starting position in Indianapolis, he expressed some concerns about the lack of progress in his race car's performance throughout the weekend. Therefore, his Summit Racing crew worked late into the night checking their race car and coming up with a game plan for race day.

Facing rival Jeg Coughlin in the opening stanza, Anderson knew an error-free performance would be necessary in order to continue his nine-year streak of advancing to at least the quarterfinals at the Labor Day classic. He did his job at the starting line, using a solid .029 reaction time to gain the advantage, which in most cases would almost guarantee the three-time champion the win. Unfortunately, his mount slowed to a 6.688-second time with a top speed of 206.89 mph, allowing his opponent to gain the narrow victory.

Although disappointed by his premature exit, Anderson turned his attention towards fixing his race car prior to the start of the NHRA's championship playoff, the Countdown to One, which sta rts in Charlotte, NC ten days from now.

"We could have had a really good race today, but for some reason my car just did not perform," said Anderson. "We started off with a bang, but just seemed to be going backwards after that. We don't know what the culprit is, so what's important now is that we find whatever is wrong and fix it.

"Throughout the course of the weekend, we discounted that the engine could be the issue, simply because we've had such great success and reliability with them. However, when we get back to the shop, we'll put it on the dyno just to make sure. We did try about six different set ups, none of which seemed to work. The graphs don't look bad, but the car just wasn't running.

"It's a tough pill to swallow. I've always run well in Indy, love racing here and expect to do well here. It's disappointing, but we're going to go home, dyno our engines and get out on the test track, getting this Summit Racing Pontiac back running the way it's capable of. We may have to wait until next year to win Indy again, but the playoffs start in less than two weeks, and we are going to be ready,"

-credit: kbr

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