Don’t look now, but the elder statesman of Pro Stock is doing what elder statesmen do. He’s teaching those whippersnappers that old(er) age and treachery will whip youth and enthusiasm any day. 

Anderson, 62, admitted in Charlotte a week ago that if he’d answered the question once, he’d answered it two dozen times: “How much longer do you want to do this?” Anderson smiled and responded with the same answer each time. 

“The answer always is until I can’t win anymore. This year, it’s been on my mind: Can I not win anymore? I guess I have proven I got to stick around a little bit longer. I guess I still can win," he said. "So [son] Cody is going to have to wait just a little bit longer.”

In St. Louis on Sunday at the NHRA Midwest Nationals, Anderson not only beat a driver in Aaron Stanfield who was only three years old when Anderson earned his Pro Stock license, but he did so with a quicker reaction time. In fact, Anderson was quicker than every opponent he faced Sunday at Wide World Technologies Raceway. His Hendrickcars.com Pro Stocker might drink Sunoco racing gas, but Anderson is chugging life water from the fountain of youth.  He beat Stanfield off the starting line and led him to the stripe, posting a 6.552, 209.92  to 6.567, 209.14. 

“I’m back in the game. I’ve legitimately got a shot at this championship with three races to go, and that’s all you can ask,” Anderson said. “I went to the first race at Reading and lost in the first round, and I’ve said it a million times, you can’t win the championship at the first race of the playoffs, but you can lose it. I was knocking on the door of knocking myself out of it. If I didn’t have a big recovery at the next race, I was out of it. I’m back in the fight, and I have a great hot rod, but there are so many great cars and so many great drivers in this class right now, it’s incredible. These next three races are going to be a bare-knuckle brawl."

Anderson has 103 career Pro Stock victories with Sunday’s triumph. 

“From first round on, it’s like racing the final every week. Right now, if you don’t do a perfect job round one, you go home. There’s no telling what’s going to happen from here on out," he said. "I feel fantastic about the way things have gone these past two weeks. With the job my guys have done on my racecar, and even the job I’ve been able to do behind the wheel, it feels great.”

Anderson’s latest victory pulled him into second place in the championship points standings, just 25 points behind Erica Enders, who he’s now beaten in back-to-back weekends. This time, he did it with a .002 reaction time. 

Stanfield advanced to his first final round of 2023 and 14th in his Pro Stock career by defeating Camrie Caruso, Chris McGaha and Bo Butner. Matt Hartford, who was upset in the first round, is 38 points back of Enders, and Dallas Glenn, who also lost in the opening round, trails the defending champ by 64 points.