From the outside, Tanner Gray exudes a sense of confidence rarely seen in a rookie.

On the inside, however, Gray is just as nervous as you might expect a first-year driver to be entering his first championship battle.

Gray entered the 2017 Countdown to the Championship in the second position in the Pro Stock standings with an improbable four wins during the regular season, but all that reset for the first of six events in the race for the Pro Stock crown.

But you wouldn’t know any of that with the way Gray performed in the opening round of the Countdown, recording wins over three former champions with 156 wins between the trio to take over the Pro Stock championship lead.

“If you would have told me I would leave here as the points leader before we started, I would have told you you were crazy,” Gray said. “I definitely thought we were going to win a little bit, but this season has gone better than I think anybody expected. The guys have such a good handle on the car and they are making my job so much easier.”

Gray earned his fifth victory of the year in a dominating win over Greg Anderson Sunday at the 10th annual NHRA Carolina Nationals at zMAX Dragway. Gray outdueled the four-time champ at the tree and never trailed in clocking a 6.614-second pass at 208.07 mph in the Gray Motorsports/Valvoline Chevrolet Camaro. Anderson recorded a 6.638 at 207.82 in the runner-up effort.

“This is probably up there as far as my biggest wins. My grandparents came from New Mexico to watch and, I’m not really an emotional guy, but my grandpa hugged me and it was hard not to tear up,” Gray said. “I am really blessed to be able to win here. To have my friends and family here makes it so much better. It is definitely special.”

Gray added wins over defending Pro Stock champion Jason Line in the semifinals, along with Erica Enders and Val Smeland.

Gray was quickest of round one in the win over Smeland and again in round two against Enders, overcoming a starting line disadvantage to chase down the former champion. In the semifinal, Gray made up for his round two stumble, never trailing in setting low elapsed time for the third consecutive round. He had passes of 6.583, 6.586 and 6.610 to advance to his sixth final of the year, all after starting from the No. 1 position.

“Something my grandpa told me, it takes everybody out there and everybody pitched in today and got me here,” Gray said. “They saved me against Erica when I was .044 against her. That’s the last thing you want when you line up against her and they bailed me out of that one. I bailed them out against Jason and then we all came together for the final. I really couldn’t be any prouder of this team.”

Thanks to that sterling performance, Gray takes a 25-point lead over Bo Butner into the second of six races in the Countdown next weekend in Reading. And he credits his amazing start, and incredible season, to a supportive family backing him every step of the way.

“Anytime you can have your family there supporting you, there giving you advice, you don’t have those problems with trust issues that you might have somewhere else,” Gray said. “You just have to sit back and trust them and that makes it so much easier. The bond there is so much greater than you can get with anybody else. It makes it pretty special.

“I am definitely excited for the rest of the season. I really do think we are going to come out the champion.”