The drag racing world has seen this movie too many times.
About the time it appears momentum is headed elsewhere, Greg Anderson snatches the dangling carrot away with enough authority to remind everyone he’s the winningest Pro Stock racer in NHRA history for a reason.
Sunday at the inaugural NHRA Potomac Nationals, Anderson added another chapter to a Hall of Fame career by defeating teammate and points leader Dallas Glenn in the final round. The victory, his 114th career national-event win and second of the season, came with a 6.472-second pass at 212.46 mph in his HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro.
The final-round scoreboard showed another Anderson victory. The bigger story was how he got there.
For most of the season, the conversation in Pro Stock has centered around Dallas Glenn, Aaron Stanfield and the increasingly narrow margins separating the category’s elite. Meanwhile, Anderson quietly kept doing what he’s done for nearly three decades, putting himself in position when the pressure gets highest.
On Sunday, he looked every bit like the six-time world champion.
Anderson opened eliminations by defeating Brandon Miller with a 6.476. He followed with a track-record 6.464 against Deric Kramer before dispatching Greg Stanfield in a semifinal matchup featuring two of the category’s most accomplished veterans.
By the time he rolled to the line against Glenn, Anderson had been the quickest car on race day.
That didn’t mean he expected an easy final round.
“No. I don’t try to get mad, I try to get even,” Anderson said when asked about seeking redemption after Chicago.
“It doesn’t do me any good to get mad. You saw what happened, was it last race that I left before I think the tree even came on against Aaron Stanfield in the final. So you got to stay in control and you can’t try to do something you can’t do. You can’t try to be Superman no matter what the competition’s doing and that’s a hard thing.”
“It’s easy said, but it’s hard to do. When you’re going up there and you got your Aaron Stanfields and your Dallas Glenns and all these guys and you know the reaction’s coming. It’s going to start with a zero or a one. It’s just the way it is. I’m not that guy anymore. I’m a realist. I’m not that guy.”
That statistic says as much about Anderson’s ability to capitalize on opportunities as anything in his record book.
“I told myself before that final round, ‘Do not make a mistake like you did last weekend,'” Anderson said. “And obviously went too far the other way and I had a horrible light, but thank God Dallas’s car didn’t make it.”
“Obviously the gods were looking on me today. So just my day, my lucky day. My car was fantastic all day long. And it’s just a good feeling racetrack for me.”
The victory also served as a reminder that KB Titan Racing isn’t conceding anything.
Elite Motorsports has narrowed the performance gap. Glenn remains the points leader. Aaron Stanfield continues to be a weekly threat.
Anderson wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Absolutely. Absolutely, positively and it makes the class all the better,” Anderson said. “Anybody can win in this class, Phil. I know I say it all the time, but it’s the truth.”
“Anybody can beat anybody and you better be on your A game and you better have your engine running great and your car working great or you’re not going to win in this class.”
Friday’s conditions produced strong numbers. Saturday, by his standards, did not.
By Sunday, everything finally lined up.
“That was a great run. That was a fantastic run,” Anderson said of his track-record quarterfinal effort.
“I said yesterday we were struggling. The weather got a little better each day as we came through the weekend and we ran real well on Friday. We came out Saturday and really, in my opinion, a little bit under achieved.”
The explanation was simple.
Pro Stock cars don’t have superchargers. They don’t have turbochargers. They live and die by atmospheric conditions.
“Our Pro Stock cars are 100 percent dependent on the weather to make horsepower,” Anderson said. “It’s that simple. We don’t have power adders.”
“When you get conditions like this, you’ve got to make the most of them. We’re not really used to it. We don’t get it very often so we don’t get a lot of practice at it.”
For Anderson, the breakthrough finally arrived on the day that mattered most.
“It took us till day three to get it right,” he said. “But we got it right on the day that counted.”
Maryland International Raceway also offered something many current Pro Stock drivers don’t possess.
History.
Long before NHRA brought a national event to Budds Creek, Anderson had raced and tested at the facility. Those memories mattered.
“Certainly none of these young kids. They don’t have any history here,” Anderson said. “I’m the only one that can even remember the last time I was here and that’s 25 years ago.”
“I’ve got history here. Maybe someone like a Greg Stanfield has a little bit of history here, but I’ll bet I’ve got the most history here than anybody and I think that helped me.”
The veteran admitted the familiarity provided confidence throughout the weekend.
It also allowed him to appreciate what the inaugural Potomac Nationals meant to the region’s drag racing community.
“To be the first winner here at the Potomac Nationals, pretty damn cool,” Anderson said.
“And it’s like I said a little earlier, I heard a quote two weeks ago from Kyle Busch and he won the truck race and got asked how special it was. It’s so special because you just don’t know when it’s going to be your last one.”
“I hope and pray to God this is not the last one and my last chance to do it, but you just never know. You’re not given anything. You’re not guaranteed anything. So appreciate it.”
Glenn left Maryland still holding an 11-point lead in the championship standings. He also left with another reminder of the challenge facing the rest of Pro Stock.
Just when it looks like the sport’s next generation is ready to seize complete control, Greg Anderson has a way of showing up on Sunday and reminding everyone why he’s still standing in the middle of the fight.
