Greg Anderson had a vision of what his Hendrickcars.com-sponsored Camaro needed to run if he was to have a chance to win the $2,500 bonus during Friday's Stampede of Speed at the NHRA FallNationals at the Texas Motorplex. 

When you're at the back of the line to run, the experience can be tough to stomach. 

"Being last you get to watch everybody and it's kind of painful, and I thought to myself, 'If I can rip off a .56, I'll have a chance at this thing."

"That's what it’s going to take to get it, I thought, was a .56. Dallas [Glenn] did it and I thought, 'oh my God, that could be it right there." 

"So I knew it was going to take something special and obviously, my car's just blazingly fast."

Anderson, who was in the last pair of Pro Stockers to run on Friday, exceeded his expectations. 

Anderson raised the bar with a 6.553 elapsed time at 209.23 miles per hour. In doing so, he bumped his teammate Glenn to second, despite his 6.567, 209.14. Erica Enders ended the night as third quickest with a 6.571, 206.67.

"It's just, it's incredible. I never thought I could run .55 and it did," Anderson said. "But it's impressive. It's fun to drive. It’s an honor to drive it right now. It's just a rocket ship. So it's up to me now to do the rest with it and do a good job piloting it but I've certainly got the horse underneath me."

Anderson's only problem with having a fast horse underneath him is that he's also created multiple fast horses in his stable. 

"It's very difficult [to stay ahead]," Anderson admitted. "We spent every single minute we have between runs and at the shop, working on every single engine we got in every car we got. So it's not like we work twice the hours on my car or anything to try and make it special. We work every bit as hard, if not harder, on the rest of them to try and make them as fast. If one's not quite as fast this week, we work harder on that one the next week. So that's what we spend all our time doing and proud of that. 

"It makes it tough and makes it tough on me to try and get around and beat your best effort to try and beat yourself. That's really what it comes down to. It's a feather in the cap when I get it done and you feel awful good but it's very easy to get your ass whooped by doing that, no question about it."

Anderson understands that he's been part of the revolution in making lease engine programs in Pro Stock a viable alternative to competing in the class. 

"I think that that you'd have to be a blind man to not see what it is right now that anybody can come in if they have a little bit of talent behind the wheel and these young kids that come in and drive them nowadays, they don't have a little bit of talent behind them, they’ve got a lot of talent coming right out of the gate," Anderson explained. "They're jumping into the best equipment money can possibly buy and experience can possibly create. They're jumping into that with all that youth, and enthusiasm and lack of fear. They don't fear anybody and they're an instant success. 

"So if people can't see that, there's something wrong with them, and that's what's completely changed the class. Certainly made it more difficult on the veterans in the class, but it's made the class more interesting. So that's what it's all about and I'll bite the bullet for that. It's helped the class tremendously, and I'm happy to be part of it."

Happy he might be, but Anderson believes the younger drivers will never fully understand how real the struggle was coming up the rough side of the mountain.

"They definitely don't realize how lucky they are, how fortunate they are because absolutely when I came into this deal you begged, borrowed and stole to get some kind of a race car," Anderson said. "That race car was going to be a five or ten-year-old race car, hand-me-down by who knows how many people. You'd beg for some type of an engine that was going to be something nobody wanted to race anymore themselves. You couldn't jump into a car that could win races, could qualify at the top of the pack before, and now they can. 

"I think half of them don't even realize how fortunate they are that they've got that right now. But good for them and it’s made the class great, made it fantastic. So there's something about being young and having the best equipment. You should be able to win."