Interview: Greg Anderson

Slide Show

Catching Up with Three-Time NHRA Pro Stock Champ Greg Anderson

The 2007 NHRA POWERade Series season will be a season of change for three-time Pro Stock champion Greg Anderson. His Summit Racing Equipment-sponsored Pontiac GTO will feature a new engine-the much-anticipated GM DRCE3 powerplant. His KB Racing team will include new members in the wake of former crew chief Jeff Perley's departure. And of course, there's the new NHRA "Countdown to the Championship" points system to contend with.

The biggest change, though, may be Greg's perspective on the Pro Stock field. For the first time since the beginning of 2003, Greg isn't on top of the Pro Stock mountain. His three-year reign as champion ended when teammate Jason Line captured the championship last November. Greg now joins the 20-plus other contenders who are trying to knock off the new champion.

One thing that will never change is Greg's approach to NHRA Pro Stock racing. Whether he's the champion or top contender, his mindset and goals remain the same heading into 2007-as we found out in this exclusive interview.

Summit Racing Equipment: What have you been working on during the off-season?

Greg Anderson: The main focus this off-season is changing our engine completely. We're changing over to the new DRCE3 version of engines. It was new to the Pro Stock class a year and a half ago, but no one has made the changeover yet except Warren Johnson. Everyone except Warren Johnson has been running the DRCE2, but we're biting the bullet right now and we're changing everything over to the completely new engine.

SRE: What can you tell us about the DRCE3 engine?

Anderson: It's a different block and different heads. It's basically completely different from the DRCE2-GM's updated version. It's taken on quite a different attitude. So far the DRCE3 engine has shown quite a bit of promise and that's what we plan on bringing to the Winternationals. It's getting 75% of our focus, along with car work and everything else.

SRE: Jeff Perley (former co-crew chief) has left the team. How has his departure affected the team so far?

Anderson: When it first developed about a month from the end of the season, it was a bit of a shake-up for us. We had a lot of success together. It was a major changeover but it was all done in a timely manner. He told us early enough, so we could start looking around for qualified help, and I think we've found the right guy. Certainly, if we had our choice we would have stayed with Jeff and stayed with the status quo, because we've had a lot of success. But if you're forced to make a change, we tried to make it for the better and tried to improve our position. I think we've done that.

SRE: Can you tell us something about Jeff's replacement?

Anderson: His name is Derek Jones. He's onboard already, and we've been to the track testing several times already. He has a lot of experience in the Winston (now Nextel) Cup world. He's an engineer, and he's a real sharp individual who can help us in a lot of ways. He and (crew chief) Rob (Downing) seem to be really jelling and working well together so it looks like we're not going to have a major bump in the road. Rob's going to be the lone crew chief, and Derek's going to be our lead engineer. He'll assume most of the roles Jeff had, but he doesn't have drag race experience yet, so he's not prepared to go read the track and make clutch calls. He'll have to observe and learn that part of it, but he's well versed in all the suspension areas of the car because he did that in the round track world.

SRE: Does it feel any different preparing for the season and not being the defending champion?

Anderson: Yeah, it does a little bit. It's certainly not a bad deal-I'm not shook up about it. We still kept it in the team, and we run this deal as such a close-knit team that we don't really have individuals. If I want to be selfish about it, then it is a bit of a shakeup for me. But I'm just going to have to do a better job in 2007, and if Jason ends up number one and I end up number two again, we're still going to be OK. The main goal is still to put these cars one and two no matter what the order. When it comes down to selfishness-yeah, both guys want to win. Certainly, I didn't want to break that string. I wanted four in a row-I wanted ten in a row-but I'm going to have to start a new string.

SRE: Do you have to change your approach because of the new "Countdown to the Championship" points format?

Anderson: I'd like to say we could run it differently because of the way the program is run, but the bottom line is we want to win every race. We're not going to change that philosophy. We're going to try to win 23 races next year and if we do that, we'll be the champions. I guess the bottom line is you'd like to be able to run though the initial stretch and qualify for the chase, and then hit a higher gear. That would be the ultimate plan, but most of us don't get to that point-we use everything we've got every week. We're just going to try and win every race, including the last two.

SRE: We saw a lot of records fall last year thanks to you and teammate Jason Line. Has it become any more challenging to go faster and quicker?

Anderson: We almost thought for a few years we were getting a little stale, and now we think the opposite. We're looking at a lot of different areas from the front bumper to the rear bumper of the car-we don't just focus on one thing. I think the sky's the limit, and it's going to continue to progress at a high rate I think.

SRE: How much faster can the Pro Stock class go?

Anderson: It seems like it grows every year-gets faster every year. You almost want to think, "how far can it go?" But it's almost the reverse of that. It's like the more you learn year after year, the more avenues that seem to open up. I think it's going to progress a lot further than it is right now.

SRE: What did it mean to you and the entire team to win the Full Throttle Pit Crew award?

Anderson: That just shows you what kind of a team we've got here. We've won it with both cars. We've won it both years they've had the award, and we've won it going away. There hasn't been anybody close to us. I take a lot of pride in that. It shows that we have a lot of consistency, and that's a key part of our program. You've got to be fast, but you also have to be consistently fast. It's certainly a very big feather in the hat of the guys around here and it's something they need to be proud of. It's a great award for the team.