There was a day when Greg Stanfield saw himself as one of the young guns in a Pro Stock class loaded with seasoned veterans.
That was roughly 25 years ago. Now Stanfield looks around, sees the young talent coming after him and figures there is no better place to be than right in the middle of the fight.
Stanfield proved Sunday at Rockingham Dragway that experience still travels pretty well.
He defeated rookie Cody Anderson on a holeshot in the final round of the inaugural NHRA Nationals at The Rock, running 6.537 seconds at 210.48 mph after leaving with a .019 reaction time. Anderson was quicker with a 6.525 at 209.99, but Stanfield had already done the damage at the starting line.
The victory was Stanfield’s second of the season and eighth in Pro Stock, and it moved him into the championship lead by 31 points over Matt Hartford and 39 over Dallas Glenn.
Getting there required something close to a Pro Stock survival course.
Stanfield opened eliminations against his son, Aaron, then beat Matt Latino before facing reigning world champion Glenn in the semifinals. Stanfield answered that assignment with a .005 reaction time before finishing the job against Anderson.
Anybody looking for evidence that the old guy can still cut the tree probably got enough.
“Anybody can win in this class right now,” Stanfield said. “I mean, it is incredible how tight it is. The points battle is going to go all the way to the end. I feel like it’s going to be that way, so if we can just survive, keep surviving and try to close out when we should.
“I did a bad job at Martin in the semis, and I was pretty upset the whole week. So to be able to do this today definitely feels good. It’s going to come down to who makes a good run at the right time. We were on that good side today.”
There is some irony in Stanfield now being the veteran trying to fend off drivers who were nowhere near Pro Stock when he first arrived.
Back then, Stanfield wasn’t just driving. He was building cars, working on engines, crew chiefing and hauling the race car down the highway.
“Absolutely not,” Stanfield said when asked if he ever envisioned himself still racing as one of the class veterans. “I mean, back in the day, as you know, we built our own cars and worked on our engines and raced our cars. It’s changed today how things are done.
“And I like how it’s done because I can just really try to focus on my part. And trying to crew chief it and build the engines and drive the car and drive the truck, it gets taxing. So at my age, I feel great. I can come back, make a run, I’ll go sit in a chair and go, ‘Man, this is nice, not have to worry about what the next call is.’ So I’m enjoying it. I love racing with Aaron. So I’m having a blast.”
He isn’t spending much time telling the younger generation how much tougher everybody had it back then, either.
“The young guys, even Aaron, I can learn from him,” Stanfield said. “Cody’s getting really good. There’s a lot of young drivers that are really talented right now. And for me to try to rise up to their level and race with them, I feel good about it.”
Rockingham also carried a family connection considerably older than Stanfield’s Pro Stock career.
His father won at the track 48 years ago in Stock Eliminator, when Stanfield was 13. The younger Stanfield remembers watching racers he idolized and imagining himself someday doing the same thing.
“It was crazy back then, but it was just so old school,” Stanfield said. “So just as a kid enjoying it, I think I was 13 years old when he won. So just wanted to be like them.”
Forty-eight years later, the kid came back and won one of his own.
Now Stanfield heads to St. Louis carrying the Pro Stock points lead, but don’t expect him to start measuring space for a championship trophy. He has raced too long to fall for that trap this early.
“It’s a possibility. It’s too early to tell,” Stanfield said. “There’s a lot of racing left. I’m just going to keep my head down and try to do my job.”
And if this turns out to be one of the last great rides of his career, Stanfield appears determined not to waste much of it worrying about when the ride ends.
“You don’t know when your last one’s going to be, so I try to enjoy it,” Stanfield said. “I try to enjoy it. And I do have a crazy side to me. People just don’t know.”
