NHRA announcer Joe Castello said it best.
“This is the first time there is truly a start/finish line at a drag race,” Castello said in jest, following Greg Anderson’s NHRA Arizona Nationals at Firebird Raceway Park.
There’s a strong likelihood that Anderson’s 107th career victory might just go down as his weirdest. In the unusual final, teammate and opponent Dallas Glenn red-lighted before the tree dropped, while Anderson’s car stalled shortly after launch. The race was over at the red light, regardless of whether Anderson’s car went two feet or 1320 feet.
“I’m still trying to figure out how the heck I won,” Anderson said. “It was a great day… I’m very proud of this team.”
And, just like in a Billy Mays commercial, but wait… there’s more!
Anderson’s day nearly ended in the second round when a mechanical malfunction nearly left him stranded at the ready line.
“I’ve had a lot of great wins, and this is probably not one that I’ll be super proud of, but you know what? Leading up to the final round, we had a great day, we had a great weekend, we had a great qualifying effort, we had a great run all through the day, and we had some adversity in the second round when my car backfired trying to start it, and it blew the rubber out of my manifold, and the thing is trying to idle at 9,000 RPM, so I had no chance to win,” Anderson explained. “All my great crew ripped the front end off quick, and they got in there stuffed under the rubber back in the manifold, and they got it to idle down to about four or 5,000 RPM, and I’m like, “Get out of the way, I’m staging this race car.” We got our stage, and somehow, we got that round win and obviously fixed the problem.”
While Anderson’s day might have ranked as absurd, it was certainly a welcomed one as Hendrickcars.com NASCAR teammate Kyle Larson won at Homestead-Miami Speedway over the weekend.
The semi-finals delivered a measure of normalcy as Anderson faced Aaron Stanfield and delivered a sharp .018-second reaction time, winning with a 6.586-second pass against Stanfield’s traction-troubled run. This victory marked Anderson’s 184th final round appearance.
On the other side of the ladder, Dallas Glenn advanced to the final after defeating David Cuadra, Greg Stanfield, and Matt Hartford. The pair faced off in the final round, continuing their rivalry from previous races.
The next event on the 2025 Mission Foods Drag Racing Series schedule is the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip from March 27-30.
