Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Victory puts Anderson on right track

Thursday, April 10, 2003 | 9:51 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

Greg Anderson's Pro Stock victory in Sunday's NHRA SummitRacing.com Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway certainly provided an emotional high for local team owner Ken Black.

It also gave Anderson added confidence as he pursues his first NHRA championship. Anderson's second win of the 2003 season allowed Anderson to increase his points lead in the category to 63 over Las Vegas runner-up Kurt Johnson.

But that's not to say that Anderson is making room on his mantel for a championship trophy.

"It's very early so you can't count out Warren (Johnson), you can't count out Jeggie (Coughlin), you can't count out Bruce Allen, you can't count out a lot of guys," Anderson said of the highly competitive category. "They're going to be there before it's all said and done but it's a good feeling to know that ... we're at the top of the standings."

Anderson, who also won the second race of the year at Firebird International Raceway in Chandler, Ariz., said Sunday's win was no fluke and cautioned his competitors that his team has not yet peaked.

"We're pretty confident that we have some other cards to play that should come to the surface in the next three or four months," Anderson said. "We can definitely go forward from here. I didn't expect for us to be at this point this early in the season; we're way ahead of schedule and I'm pumped."

Anderson was equally excited that he was able to win the final round against Johnson despite losing lane choice in the semifinals and having to race from the less-favored right lane on Sunday.

"We made one little slip-up in the semifinals, lost lane choice and my heart just sunk," Anderson said. "I thought we had wasted the whole weekend on that deal. Somehow we dug down, got down that (right) lane in the finals and came out on top.

"Every race I've been to with the new Grand Am, it's gone down every track regardless of how bad the lane was. Knowing we had that potential in the racecar gave me back some needed confidence. We could have been racing down a gravel road and that Grand Am would have been superb."

Five Top Fuel runs at the NHRA SummitRacing.com Nationals eclipsed 330 mph, a record for a national event.

The test and tune will be Friday from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. and will be followed by Midnight Mayhem for street-legal cars (10 p.m. to 2 a.m.).

On Saturday, the Junior Drag Racing League will opens its season and run from noon to 4 p.m., the first Bracket race of the season and the Super E Association will occupy The Strip from 5:30 to 11 p.m. and Motorcycle Madness will run from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m.

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