Greg Anderson and the Summit Racing team opened the 2010 Full Throttle season in tremendous fashion on Sunday, battling their way to a runner-up finish at the 50th annual Kragen O’Reilly Winternationals in Pomona, CA. Starting from the sixth position, the KB Racing crew opened with the second quickest time of the first round at 6.608-seconds to trailer rival Kurt Johnson, and following that success with subsequent victories over rookie Shane Gray and veteran Larry Morgan to advance to the final round for the 89th time in Anderson’s illustrious career.
The final obstacle between Anderson and his fifth Winternationals win was defending Pro Stock champion Mike Edwards, who had posted the quickest elapsed time in each round of qualifying and eliminations. Racing in the less-preferred right hand lane, the three-time champion knew he would need every advantage to score the upset win, and responded by leaving the line almost four hundredths of a second ahead of his opponent, combining it with the quickest run of the day in that lane at 6.618-seconds with a top speed of 209.62 mph. Unfortunately, it fell an immeasurable three-thousandths of a second shy of holding off Edwards’ charge, who used the quickest pass of the weekend at 6.577 to gain the narrow victory.
“Although we’re certainly happy to have made it to the final, we’re a little puzzled as to why our car slowed down so much in the final,” said Anderson. “As the day went along, and the track got hot and greasy, we had gone into somewhat of a conservative mode, making changes to the car to just survive. After all, you don’t want to go over the edge and shake the tires, because if you do, your day is over. Doing that, we made it to the final
“They called us to the lanes for the final at 4:20, so we figured the track hadn’t changed much and made a few adjustments to compensate. Unfortunately, we sat there for an hour, during which conditions changed and we ended up with the wrong set-up. Having said that, Mike (Edwards) went through the same situation and got it right, so it tells us we have to get better, and we will. I may be dragging my lip right now, but I know we had a good day, making it to the final round. It just wasn’t a great one, and we’re only really happy when we win.”
Anderson also admitted that his disappointment had been magnified by his desire to do well for team owner Ken Black, who had been forced to miss the race as he recovers from a stroke suffered last December.
“I really wanted to bring a trophy to Ken,” said Anderson. “We’re going to go see him in Las Vegas tomorrow before testing on Tuesday and Wednesday, and would have liked to put a smile on his face after everything he’s gone through. I guess we’ll just have to wait a week and see if we can get it done in Phoenix. For all he has done for us, it’s the least we can do.”
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