| GREG ANDERSON: A CLASS ACT | ||||
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Ask any racer, and those that are honest will admit that while drag racing may be addictive, winning makes it even more so. Guys like Summit Racing 
“Edwards is too good a racer to have it happen to him, and he’s going to be your champion. The bottom line is, he deserves it. He’s had the strongest car all year, and it’s certainly not a fluke that he’s gong to win it. He’s been strong at every track we’ve been to. - Anderson, on Mike Edwards 2009 Pro Stock championship. <
The question of sponsorship is always paramount with any racer, but people wonder how a sponsor reacts when they see a team they’ve invested in heavily failing to come home with a championship. Do they understand how tough it is to win? Do they realize how competitive Pro Stock really is? “They seem to,” Anderson says. “But you know that deep down they hope it wasn’t that way. Heck, we wish it weren’t that way. You’ve got to keep digging every day to get back to the top. “The way the economy is right now, the way this whole sport is right now, it’s so tough to keep a sponsor happy and keep them doing what they’re doing because money isn’t discretionary to (the sponsors) any more. It has to make sense to them to make an investment in racing, so without a doubt the better we perform, the more sense it makes to Summit for them to continue making that investment in us. We don’t need to just be out here racing and hanging with the guys, we need to be winning. (Summit) seems to understand where we are right now, but when it comes to the bottom line, you’re doggone right, it makes a difference when you’re winning races, and we’re not doing that right now. We knew it would be more important to win races this year than ever before, but we’re just not doing it.” Anderson is just one of many Pro Stock competitors who foresees possibly major changes in class participation next season. “I’ve gotta believe we’re going to lose some people,” he says. “I don’t know how we can’t. I hate to say it, but I don’t know how every class out here isn’t going to lose a lot of people next year. You can only hang in there and tough it out so long. It takes a lot of money to run (these cars), and right now the money’s not there for a lot of people. It’ll probably weed some people out, and I hate thinking about that.” While the loss of General Motors support has been significant to everyone in Pro Stock, Anderson is upbeat about the future. “I think GM will come back,” he says. “I doubt if it’ll be in 2010. It’ll be at least another year, but I definitely believe in my heart and mind that they’re going to come back. I’ll hold out as long as I can for them to come back. I’m still going to run Pontiacs, but I know when they do come back it’s obviously going to be with another brand (because the Pontiac brand will have been phased out before then – Ed.) I really believe they will come back.” The departure of General Motors severely impacted almost every Pro Stock program, certainly including the two car operation of Anderson and Jason Line that’s owned by Ken Black. “The loss of GM hurt us tremendously,” Anderson admits. “We had to make a lot of cutbacks on the team, and 
Jeg Coughlin, Jr. is another first class racer who has been quick to credit Mike Edwards with a stellar season. Although Coughlin appeared to be championship-bound at one point, the fates appeared to be against his repeating.
It’s always interesting to get a racer’s views on his own class, so we asked Anderson what he thought NHRA might be able to do to help make Pro Stock bigger and better. “Well, obviously, it’s the same thing we’ve all been saying for a long time,” he said. “We don’t think we get the recognition and the TV time and the build-up, or whatever you want to call it, from the sanctioning body that Top Fuel and Funny Car get. I know that sounds like a broken record, and I’m sorry, but that’s the way we feel. If you turn on your TV, or come out to the races and listen to the PA, we just don’t get the bang that the fuel classes get. “We spend as much money, or more than they do. We work as hard, or harder than they do. We have what I think is a very, very interesting class. It’s a competitive class, more competitive than the other two classes, and I don’t understand why we shouldn’t be treated equally with them. Advertisement
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Equipment Pro Stock driver Greg Anderson, who has a house full of NHRA national event trophies interspersed with the occasional POWERade Series championship gold, know what it’s like to win. With winning comes losing. It’s just the natural order of things. But, it’s how you handle those losses that will ultimately determine your reputation. Throwing your helmet, for example, is not the way you ingratiate yourself to your fans and sponsors.
