MAYBE SOME FIREPROOF MATERIALS WOULD HELP
Four-time NHRA champion Greg Anderson loves to be considered the hottest Pro Stock driver. The trouble is, he is -- literally.
Once again, "Greg Anderson" and "fire" found their ways into the same sentence Sunday at the Summer Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka. His KB/Summit Racing Pontiac GXP caught fire after he defeated brother-in-law and team member Ronnie Humphrey in the opening round. The culprit was gasoline in the headers.
"It normally has a small header fire right after I pull the 'chutes," Anderson said, "and we extinguish it by starting the engine. Unfortunately, for some reason today, it wouldn’t restart, so by the time I got to the turnoff, it was fully ablaze, and the Safety Safari had to put it out.
"I have to say we did make things a little interesting at the top end in the first round. It made for a little extra work between rounds, but everybody jumped in and got the job done," he said.
Anderson, who in the past year or so has helped his family rebuild after a home fire and helped his team regroup after its transporter burn to the ground last November, said the car repeated his misbehavior.
"Ironically enough, it did the same thing on the next two runs, but I was able to restart the motor and put it out without any issues," he said. "I’m not quite sure what it is with me and fire lately, but it does seems to be following me around. It's just another thing I guess we'll have to work on."
Anderson eliminated Allen Johnson in the quarterfinals and lost to Shane Gray in their semifinal.
"Considering our struggles with my car, I'm pretty pleased to have made it to the semifinals," Anderson said. "We never did get it figured out this weekend, but still found a way to race well and go rounds on Sunday, which is a real testament to this Summit Racing team. They never give up – they just keep fighting.
"We'll just put this one in the history books and move on, going back to our shop in Mooresville (N.C.) to regroup. We have a weekend off before the next race, and we need it to study, figuring out why my car is so different from our other two Summit Racing Pontiacs. It's a work in progress, and all we can do is keep digging so we can have a better product for Englishtown."
He only can hope it will be fireproof.
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