While the tears weren’t flowing freely you could tell the emotions were getting the best of Greg Anderson.

It was 11 months earlier that his life had been turned upside down by situations beyond his control. First there was team owner Ken Black’s severe stroke and not long after that a fire damaged his home. Then there was the reality Mike Edwards had totally dominated his Summit Racing Equipment team into submission and showed no signs of slowing down for the 2010 season.

A lesser man would have folded under the extreme pressure. Anderson almost did.

Yet, something wouldn’t let him.

While the tears weren’t flowing freely you could tell the emotions were getting the best of Greg Anderson.

It was 11 months earlier that his life had been turned upside down by situations beyond his control. First there was team owner Ken Black’s severe stroke and not long after that a fire damaged his home. Then there was the reality Mike Edwards had totally dominated his Summit Racing Equipment team into submission and showed no signs of slowing down for the 2010 season.

A lesser man would have folded under the extreme pressure. Anderson almost did.

Yet, something wouldn’t let him.

“This has certainly been the most trying season, yet the most rewarding,” Anderson said Saturday afternoon after clinching his fourth career NHRA Pro Stock series championship. “I’ll certainly never forget this one. We’ve had to scratch, scrape and claw our way back to respectability. Have chances to win races again. We had to cope to find a way to accept our team leader Ken Black wasn’t here with us.”

Anderson admitted there was a time when he wondered if Black would ever come back. However, when Black returned, he was greeted with a team chock full of emotion and momentum.

“He makes us feel almost invincible,” admitted Anderson. “It’s a great feeling with him being back out here. When you get your head right, that’s me and my team, Ken has helped us to do that. Here we are champions again. You couldn’t have bet me any amount of money in the world earlier this season that it would have turned out this way. My team never gave up hope.”

Anderson entered the Countdown to 1 as the fifth seeded driver. He experienced moderate success during the regular season but clearly his championship defining run came in the final six events. He scored final rounds in four of the six events, winning three times. He was a three-time finalist in the regular season.

“Just putting a smile on Ken Black’s face was worth it,” Anderson said. “We probably tried to hard early in the season to win and pressed too hard. We just couldn’t get it right. We wanted to make him proud of us somehow. Somehow I knew that would help in his recovery. He finally had to get us calmed down and let us know he was going to be okay. We needed to go back to the track and learn how to have fun again. We needed to stop worrying about winning races to put a smile on his face. Once we did that, we were able to go out and win again.”

The most pivotal win was his mid-season victory at his sponsor’s hometown race in Norwalk, Ohio. This was the event where Anderson first admitted he battled confidence issues.

However, possibly the most meaningful might have been two weeks prior to clinching his championship when Black made his first appearance at the drag strip since his December 2009 stroke. Not only did Anderson beat teammate Line in the final round, he also overtook Edwards for the championship lead. Once in his grasp, Anderson would not relinquish his grip on the top spot.

“I don’t think it was a fluke, the way we performed at the last five races,” Anderson said. “It’s not because crazy things happened and we got lucky. I think we earned it. I know Mike Edwards was dominant for two years straight. He made a few small mistakes and we were able to capitalize on it. I feel bad for him. My team performed great. They didn’t hand it to us. We took it.”

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