Greg Anderson understands the short ball can win games. And, for the 90-time NHRA Pro Stock winner, he combined both short and long to position himself for a win on Sunday at the NHRA Southern Nationals outside of Atlanta, Ga.

Anderson stepped up in a big way during Saturday's Q-3 session, running a 6.586-second elapsed time at 209.69 to not only lock up his 97th No. 1 qualifier but also add eight bonus points to his tally.
 
"We had two different situations across the first two days here in Atlanta," said Anderson. "We had bright sun yesterday, and today we had a cloud cover pretty much all day. It was a little bit of a tricky track yesterday, and today the racetrack got real good. We had to make a lot of changes to the racecars, and we hit her on the nose this morning."

Sunday's first-round pairs Anderson against Val Smeland.
 
"The racetrack is gaining every run," Anderson continued. "I didn't run as fast as we could have on that last run [6.605, 209.75] because we backed her down thinking the track wasn't as good – but it was. We did get some good data, and we have a very fast, very consistent racecar with my Summit Racing Chevrolet Camaro. There are a lot of fast cars out here, and thousandths [of a second] make the difference between No. 1 and No. 8. It's just crazy.

"I was glad to get the bonus points and be on top for Sunday; that's as good as you can set the field. I'm looking forward to it, and I desperately need a good raceday, but I feel positive about it. We know what we have in the racecar, and it's ready to go do battle."