After shaking the tires on their first attempt on Thursday, Greg Anderson and the Summit Racing team came into the second session of the 50th annual O’Reilly Kragen Winternationals at a bit of a disadvantage. Not only would they be the first car down the less-preferred right hand lane, but the increased temperatures at the Auto Club Raceway on Friday were also not as conducive to quick times by the normally-aspirated Pro Stock contingent.
Seemingly undeterred, Anderson posted one of the quickest times of the round at 6.623-seconds with a top speed of 209.62 mph to move into the field in the eighth position. Even so, the four-time Winternationals winner felt his team still had work to do before final eliminations, as they tried to match their 1,400-horsepower race car to a very tricky Pomona racing surface.
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“I’m not sure what happened, but this track is completely different than it was during the Finals,” said Anderson. “At this point, it just doesn’t seem to have any traction, which has us a little puzzled, because it was pretty good back in November. I’m not exactly sure what they’re doing differently, but right now it’s like going down a dirt road, and we are not the only ones saying so – there were quite a few unhappy drivers at the top end today.
“As for our, we spun the tires the entire length of the track. Of course, our problems were compounded when we didn’t get out of low gear yesterday, so we had no information on the track. However, we did take a step in the right direction today with my Summit Racing Pontiac. We have two more runs tomorrow and a lot of ground to make up, but we also have a lot left on the table, because we are nowhere near making a representative run. The potential is there – we just have to figure it out, and we have a whole day and two runs to do it.”
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