Greg Anderson has never been so pleased to be wrong.

Anderson, who ran a 6.565 seconds elapsed time at 211.26 miles per hour to claim the top spot Friday at Norwalk, figured his run would hold through Saturday’s remaining sessions at the NHRA Summit Racing Equipment Nationals and that part he predicted accurately.

Saturday became a preparation day for Sunday’s final eliminations at Summit Raceway Park outside of Cleveland, Ohio.

This is where Anderson was wrong.

Anderson, who has five No. 1 qualifying performances this season, didn’t expect much from the racing surface considering it was as hot of 130 degrees and had seen a lot of race traffic.

"You're just curious to how the race car is going to react to the hot starting line,” explained Anderson. “We obviously had a lot hotter starting line today than we had yesterday. The air conditions, the quality of the air was worse and the motors made less power. We knew we weren't going to run as fast, but we knew the starting line was going to be tricky. We made a lot of changes to the race cars and came out first round today and we're pleasantly surprised to find that the starting line didn't disappear like we thought it would; it held up great.

“Then the sun baked on it another 3 or 4 hours today and we thought, well, it has to fall by the time we get there since it's had sun on it all day long and it didn't fall in the last qualifying run, so we guessed wrong on both runs today. The racetrack held up great. I don't know how they're doing it or what they did, but with that amount of sun and that amount of heat it should have gone away a lot more than it did, and it didn't.

“Sunday is going to be a little bit of a guess. We can't be quite as much in safe mode or whatever you want to call it as we were today or we'll get outrun, we'll get beat. We're going to have to be a little more aggressive tomorrow even though we're going to have hotter conditions. It's still a tuners battle and still going to be scary every time we roll up there."  

Anderson was third quickest in Q-3 with a 6.632, and second quickest in Q-4 with a 6.639. He was only bettered in both sessions by teammates Jason Line and Bo Butner.

Saturday provided a win-win scenario for Anderson, but on Sunday it’s one and done if he makes a mistake.

"Sunday is a different day and you can't make the mistakes that you make in qualifying; you have to concentrate a lot harder,” said Anderson. “It's win or go home; it's sudden death every time you go up there, so you can't go up there and make the mistakes that I made in qualifying. I have to get my head together and come out strong tomorrow and focus."

By virtue of their dream year, Anderson and Line both clinched their Countdown to the Championship berths just twelve races into the season, tying Tony Schumacher’s 2008 season for the shortest amount of races needed to qualify for the playoffs.

"It's definitely been a good year," Anderson said. "This is the first step, and obviously, you cannot race for a championship without getting in there. We are going to have to find a way to notch it up another level once it starts."

Another level could be disheartening to the competition considering how high they raised the bar of competition already 12 races into the season. Including this weekend, they have qualified one-two-three at nine of 12 events, accumulating 253 of 270 available bonus points. A member of the three-car team has led all 46 of 47 qualifying sessions, qualified No. 1 at 12 events and have accounted for all wins this season.

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