Greg Anderson knows it’s a long shot for him to win his fifth NHRA Mello Yello Series Pro Stock world championship, but he’s not going down without a fight.

With two races left in the 2019 season, Anderson is 99 points behind leader Erica Enders.

Anderson, who drives the Summit Racing Equipment Chevy Camaro, accomplished one feat, grabbing the No. 1 qualifying position at the Dodge NHRA Nationals presented by Pennzoil at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Anderson clocked a 6.584-second elapsed time at 207.91 mph Saturday, noting that Vegas has been very good to him.

“It has always been a great racetrack for me,” Anderson said. “Obviously, that Ken Black, our team owner, lives here means the world to us. When we started this race team back in 2001, he told me, I don’t really care what you do the rest of the way across the country as long as you do well here in Vegas. We didn’t do well that very first race and we dedicated ourselves to staying here and testing before the next time we came here to race and ever since then it has been great. I love coming here racing in front of him and his family. It’s a special weekend so far and we have had a lot of magic happen at this racetrack before and it really makes you feel good and give you a lot of confidence.

The class is so tight, so close that any little edge you can get whether it be confidence or home-field advantage, whatever you want to call it, we will take it because it takes so much to win a race anymore in Pro Stock.”

Anderson is tied with Top Fuel's Tony Schumacher with eight Las Vegas wins, more than any other professional driver in any category. Anderson now has 104 career starts from the No. 1 position, the third most of any Pro driver.

“It is going to come down to who makes zero mistakes (in Vegas) and has the best day (Sunday) and that’s who is going to win,” Anderson said. “I was able to put it all together two weeks ago in Dallas for the first time in a long time and it felt great and it gave some extra confidence coming here and so far, it has spilled over. I’m looking forward to (Sunday), it is going to be a wonderful day. I love being here.”

Anderson has 94 national event wins, second most in NHRA’s Pro Stock class behind only Warren Johnson with 97.

“I definitely need magic (Sunday) and a little divine intervention, whatever you want to call it, there’s no question,” Anderson said. “We had a good run at Dallas and that got us where we still have a chance, but it is an outside chance. I still feel I need to run the table to even have a chance at the thing. It’s a hard thing to do. Nobody has been able to win three races in a row this year and hopefully I can make that happen and have a dream end to the season. You can’t predict. I certainly know as much about the inside of this class as anybody and I couldn’t possibly bet who is the favorite. Anybody can beat anybody in the class and that’s why it is so great right now.”

The 2019 NHRA Mello Yello Series season concludes with the Vegas race this weekend and then the season finale – the Auto Club NHRA Finals, Nov. 14-17 in Pomona, Calif. In Pomona, the points-and-a-half system will be in play, allowing drivers to make up more ground.

Anderson faces Cristian Cuadra in round one Sunday.

“The race car really became happy a couple of weeks ago at Dallas,” Anderson said. “We came here, and I thought is it just the Dallas race track the car likes or what? Then, we came here, and it ran great. We are not making big changes anymore. We had been up to Dallas because we were kind of lost. We couldn’t find what the red Summit Chevy wanted. It seems we hit on it at Dallas, and the boys told me what do you think of your race car now? I love it and I said is it just this racetrack at Dallas and they said, ‘no we think we have it better.’ They were right. I was wrong to doubt them. We have a horse now that can run with the best of them.”