Greg Anderson has experienced some weird weekends in his career, but few can parallel his encounters in Houston. The 47-year old driver of the Summit Racing Equipment Pontiac GXP deflected the potential misfortunes en route to winning his 53rd NHRA POWERade national event title by defeating Kurt Johnson.

Anderson emerged as the champion in Houston just like he did in Pomona. However, that’s where the similarities ended.

“We did it and it was a completely different win than the first one in Pomona,” Anderson said. “We just had a flawless weekend.  We showed up and we ran great.  We qualified number one.  I think we ran low ET every run and everything was smooth sailing. Greg Anderson has experienced some weird weekends in his career, but few can parallel his encounters in Houston. The 47-year old driver of the Summit Racing Equipment Pontiac GXP deflected the potential misfortunes en route to winning his 53rd NHRA POWERade national event title by defeating Kurt Johnson.

Anderson emerged as the champion in Houston just like he did in Pomona. However, that’s where the similarities ended.

“We did it and it was a completely different win than the first one in Pomona,” Anderson said. “We just had a flawless weekend.  We showed up and we ran great.  We qualified number one.  I think we ran low ET every run and everything was smooth sailing.

“But we struggled this weekend,” Anderson continued. “We didn't qualify very well; we qualified 6th.  We just couldn't make a decent run down the race track.  We struggled with our combination.  We came out this morning and we made a lot of changes to the car last night.  We came out first round and we thought we made some gains.  We actually made a fairly smooth run and got back in the ballpark.” 

As if Anderson didn’t have enough to deal with, then the track went away.

“I don't know how it looked from up here but it was a struggle in the race car,” Anderson said. “It was exciting.  You leave the starting line and it just seems like all hell was breaking loose.  We were just shocked when that win light would come on at the finish line.” 

Anderson’s latest victory moved him into fifth place on the NHRA’s all-time professional wins list. He’s won twice in 2008 and currently leads the championship points.

He longed for victories much easier than Houston yielded.

“This win today was a lot like I've seen some other people do it before and it's gut wrenching let me tell you,” Anderson said. “You're just shocked when that win light comes on.  It's a special feeling when you win a race like this, I don't know if I want to get used to this.  It's awful hard on the heart.  I'd much rather have a car that's flawless out there but it didn't today.  We had a better car in the lane every time we went up there no matter how bad it was.” 

Just to think, the run to the championship began with an ugly burnout.

“There were just so many things out of the ordinary in Houston,” Anderson said. “There was one burnout where I was headed right for the photographers on the rail.  They probably thought, they were all running so I'd like to see the replay of that.  I'd have to have a notebook to write down all the crazy things that happened this weekend.  Somehow we're standing here in victory lane.  I guess that's all anybody will remember a month or so from now so we're going to be proud winners tonight.”