As the second-most winning driver of all time at prestigious Sonoma Raceway, HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro pilot Greg Anderson just feels good coming to the DENSO NHRA Sonoma Nationals. On Saturday at the facility where he has earned six Pro Stock trophies, the five-time world champion powered his way to a track-record 6.491-second pass to lock down the 128th No. 1 of his career and fourth of the season.
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After struggling a bit on Friday, Anderson was more than pleased to wake up on the second day of qualifying to find conditions ripe for powerful Pro Stock passes, and he and his seasoned KB Titan Racing crew took full advantage.
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\u201cWe love these conditions,\u201d said Anderson. \u201cWe depend on Mother Nature to go fast, and when she shines on us like she did today, you lick your chops, throw it down, and see who brought the most. I didn\u2019t have a great day yesterday, but today was absolutely a turn of fortune. We maximized the conditions, and here we sit atop the charts.\u201d
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The 6.491 he dished out in Saturday\u2019s early session came with a speed of 211.20 mph, and as low elapsed time of the round, it also came with three bonus points. In the later session, Anderson was again quickest of all with a 6.511, 210.83 for another trio of bonus marks that will come into play once the Countdown to the Championship points are reset for the playoffs.
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Anderson\u2019s start from the No. 1 position is his ninth pole at Sonoma Raceway \u2013 a hefty number for one driver to have earned at a single racing facility, but the Minnesota-born and bred competitor finds the Napa Valley dragstrip welcoming, year after year.
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\u201cWe have a lot of good book on this racetrack,\u201d he explained. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a really good, high-quality racing surface. That\u2019s what we love about it \u2013 you don\u2019t have to de-tune the racecars to go down this racetrack. You go out there and show off the horsepower you\u2019ve been able to build. I feel great about the job my engine shop does and my car guys do, and when you can come to a racetrack like this where you can basically \u2018run what ya brung,\u2019 you just love it. Sonoma Raceway has always been one of my favorite racetracks.\u201d
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Anderson enters raceday in Sonoma No. 2 in the Pro Stock points, trailing only KB Titan Racing teammate and points leader Dallas Glenn. So far this season, Anderson has earned two wins in three final rounds, and he has stayed top-three in the standings all season long. That\u2019s quite a feat in a class where wins have been shared between five different drivers and competition has been relentlessly heated. He\u2019ll start the day with a first-round meeting with class newcomer Derrick Reese.
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\u201cAnybody can beat anybody in this class,\u201d said Anderson, who is eager to recover from early losses at the last two events, despite qualifying well at both races. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t seem to matter where you qualify, you have to treat every round like it\u2019s a final. That\u2019s the way I\u2019ll roll up there tomorrow \u2013 knowing I can get my butt whipped and sent home early if I don\u2019t do my job. You have to go up there and do the very, very best you can, every single time.
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\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to tomorrow, and I don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to vary a whole lot, weather-wise, so we should have a great tune-up for raceday. For me, this is just a great, great place to race. I love the scenery, the people, the feel, and my whole family loves it. Everybody is happy, from my wife to my crew and my car. All the signs are there \u2013 it\u2019s just a matter of going out there and executing. It\u2019s time to turn the corner.\u201d
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Eliminations for the DENSO NHRA Sonoma Nationals are set to begin at 10:30 a.m. PT at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday, July 28, 2024.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on July 28, 2024. <\/p>\n
The post Greg Anderson Powers HendrickCars.com Chevy to 128th Career No. 1 in Sonoma Qualifying<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the second-most winning driver of all time at prestigious Sonoma Raceway, HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro pilot Greg Anderson just feels good coming to the DENSO NHRA Sonoma Nationals. On Saturday at the facility where he has earned six Pro Stock trophies, the five-time world champion powered his way to a track-record 6.491-second pass to lock […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}