Greg Anderson was cruising around downtown Cleveland Friday, just to have something to do while the rain was threatening to wash out the opening day of qualifying for the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at nearby Norwalk, Ohio.

To his surprise, the showers stopped, he and his Pro Stock class got in two scheduled qualifying runs at Summit Motorsports Park, and Anderson was in control of the provisional order.

“If you’re going to be No. 1 at the end of the day, you have to do everything perfect, and I made a perfect run. And I don’t say that very often,” Anderson said, more amazed than boastful. “By the second session it was a picture-perfect racetrack. You could do anything you wanted.”

However, he knew overnight that Saturday would bring better conditions, and the KB / Summit Racing Chevy Camaro driver said, “You’re going to have to up your performance if you want to hang onto that top spot.”

He didn’t, not in Saturday’s first session and third of four overall. But Anderson regained his top berth in the line-up in his final chance.    

Drew Skillman ended Anderson’s exuberance in Q3, improving from the tentative seventh spot to first place. And Anderson responded with a 6.584-second quarter-mile elapsed time at 210.24 mph to earn his first top starting spot since last November’s event at Las Vegas. It’s the 88th time in his career he’ll lead the class into Sunday’s eliminations.

He’ll take on No. 16 qualifier Mark Hogan, who qualified his EMSI GXP at 6.862 seconds to anchor the first full Pro Stock field in this “Eastern Swing” and the first one since the Atlanta event May 7.

Anderson said if he could talk with Mother Nature, he would advise her to repeat Saturday’s weather.

“She needs to sit still and relax – chill – and bring back just exactly what we had today,” he said: “Perfect temperature, perfect day for a race. The barometer was way up, and the humidity and temperatures were way down. And we were excited.

“We didn’t lose any weather conditions today from the morning run to the afternoon run,” he said Saturday evening, “and Mother Nature hung in there. The racetrack stayed great, and we were able to make the right changes to the race car and go out and snatch that No. 1 spot back.

“We made a mistake on the first run today and thought, ‘Doggone it – we had a great weekend going and we blew it.’ But we recovered nicely,” Anderson said. “It started off to be a disappointment but ended up being another great day.”

So far no one has touched Erica Enders’ track records (6.523 seconds, 212.63 mph) that have stood since July 2014.

His KB /Summit teammate Bo Butner qualified No. 2, just four-thousandths of a second behind. Skillman and Tanner Gray, each with 6.593-second  E.T.s, followed, and first-session leader Jason Line will start fifth. Jeg Coughlin, Vincent Nobile, and Chris McGaha rounded out the top half of the ladder.

The bottom half had some surprising names, including Allen Johnson, Erica Enders, and the class’ most recent winner, Alex Laughlin. Joining them are Alan Prusiensky, Kenny Delco, John Gaydosh, Val Smeland, and Hogan.