Thursday, Oct. 18, 2007 | 7:16 a.m.
Greg Anderson almost made it look easy as he cruised to three consecutive NHRA Pro Stock world championships for team owner Ken Black, a Las Vegas businessman.
There is going to be nothing easy about winning a championship now, Anderson said, as the NHRA opens its new two-race "Countdown to One" playoff format the weekend of Oct. 27 with the ACDelco Las Vegas NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Under the new championship format, only the top eight drivers in each of the four professional categories after 17 races are eligible to contend for a championship. Four races later, the field is narrowed to the top four drivers in each class.
"I've got to find a way to put the rest of the year out of my mind and just treat it like it's the start of a new season , and it's only a two-race-long season and may the best man win," said Anderson, who enters the final two races as the second seed in Pro Stock.
"It's very difficult. You can't even as much as hiccup and expect to win a championship. You're not going to be able to make one small mistake of any kind, whether it's in qualifying or on race day. That's going to put a lot of pressure on the teams and a lot of pressure on the drivers."
Drivers' points in each category were reset before the "Countdown to One," and Dave Connolly holds a 10-point lead over Anderson going into the final two races. Jeg Coughlin is seeded third and trails Anderson by 10 points, and Allen Johnson is fourth, 30 points behind Connolly.
Anderson won his world championships from 2003 to 2005 and teammate Jason Line made it four in a row for KB Racing by capturing his first Pro Stock championship last year. Anderson, who has won seven races this season and 46 since the start of the 2003 season, said he will approach the final two races of the season as he did the first 21.
"I go to each race to win, so that's what I'm going to do these next two races. And if I can win them, then we'll be the champions," he said. "I don't think there's going to be room to go conservative - you're going to have to try to win those races and if you don't win those races, then you're not going to be the champion.
"I don't think two runner-ups is going to do it and I don't think a couple ( of semifinal finishes) is going to do it. I think you're going to have to win one - if not both of them - to be the champion."
Name change
The United Auto Workers will end their sponsorship of the NASCAR Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway after the 2008 race, speedway officials announced this week.
The event has been called the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 since 2001 - the fifth-longest active race sponsorship in the Cup Series. Next year's race, scheduled for March 2, will be known as the UAW-Dodge 400.
Chris Powell, LVMS general manager, seems confident that the speedway will have little trouble finding a replacement for the UAW. He said in a statement that potential sponsors have expressed "for quite some time" an interest in the naming rights to the race if they were to become available.
Sneak preview
Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin aren't waiting until next year - when they will be teammates at Joe Gibbs Racing - to start working together.
Busch, a Las Vegas native who drives for Hendrick Motorsports in the Nextel Cup Series, and JGR's Hamlin will be driving Chevrolet trucks for Billy Ballew Motorsports in Saturday's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway.
"We're going to be teammates next year , but we're great friends off the track, so it will be kind of the first time that we will be comparing notes and actually on the same team," said Busch, who will move to JGR and drive the No. 18 in 2008. "It's going to be pretty cool."
Busch is in his third full season driving the No. 5 Kellogg's Chevy for Hendrick Motorsports. Team owner Rick Hendrick this summer opted to part ways with Busch after this season and sign Dale Earnhardt Jr.
7
Career NASCAR Cup victories for Jeff Gordon at Martinsville Speedway, the site of Sunday's NASCAR Nextel Cup Series race
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Career NHRA Pro Stock victories for Greg Anderson - five of which have come at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
"This is exactly what NHRA wanted and it's pretty damn exciting."
Veteran driver Gary Scelzi,
who is the second seed in Funny Car, on the new "Countdown to the Championship" format to determine the sport's season champions
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