DRO: Do you
see Pro Stock going the way of the nitro classes,
with more multi-car teams competing? You've
got the two-car team now, but do you eventually
plan a three or four-car team?
Anderson:
Yes I do, I do see that. But it's not on the
table yet, it's not a plan yet. We're still
growing, we're still trying to get to where
we want to be. We're not where we want to be
yet and we don't have all the things we need
to do the job properly. We don't have enough
equipment, we don't have enough people, and
we don't have enough budget. We don't have enough
of anything yet to do that. Will we someday
have that? Hopefully it will happen. I think
the bigger you can expand your team properly
with the proper people and the proper budget,
the better you can be. But if you do it too
soon, you're not prepared budget wise, you're
not prepared shop wise or people wise, then
it's going to come back to haunt you. It's a
slow progression and someday I see that coming,
but not in the near future. We're barely able
to run a two-car team properly.
It's hard to find the right people that will
all get along and fit together. It's hard and
the more you get, the harder it is to get enough
good people.
DRO: You have
a strong mechanical background, so do you get
more satisfaction from preparing the car or
driving it?
Anderson:
I'm getting a lot of satisfaction out of the
motor end of it, but at the same time there's
nothing that compares to when you do a decent
job of driving and you win the race because
you drove well. That's the last part that meets
the finish line, the last piece of the puzzle
and the first part to get congratulations or
if you do a bad job, the blame. It's the end
of the rope, the bottom line, whatever you want
to call it.
DRO: How do
you feel about the way NHRA promotes drag racing?
Anderson:
I don't know that I have the answer for that
except I don't think that they promote Pro Stock
enough. It's hard for us to get equal TV time
with the fuel classes. You see a lot of times
when you go up to run Pro Stock after they get
done running fuel, a lot of
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people
walk out of the grandstand. That hurts your
feelings. You wonder why that's happening. We're
a professional class too, and I think we're
more exciting than fuel cars, but apparently
lot of people don't think that way. What do
we do to change that? Is it simply because NHRA
doesn't promote us enough? Probably not. There
are probably things that need to be changed
in the class.
The one thing I know and I really feel deep
down that would help the class is for the cars
to go faster. I honestly believe that. Obviously,
you're not going to go as fast as a fuel class.
So does it matter that we run 205 instead of
300? Is 250 going to be any better? Is 230 going
to be any better than 205? Maybe it won't make
any difference at all. I don't know what it's
going to take. I don't know what's going to
work, but that's one thing I can think of.
DRO: How do
you feel about the Pro Mod guys being out there
as a faster doorslammer class?
Anderson:
I don't think you'll find any Pro Stock guy
that's comfortable with it because they (NHRA)
already know we've got a problem with this class.
We've got an identity problem and we feel that
the reason NHRA brings in Pro Mod is that they
like something about them better. It threatens
us and I'm not going to sit here and say I like
it, but it threatens our class. Am I wrong to
think that probably we just need to make our
class better?
The bottom line why we don't really like it
is we know for a fact that the most hands-on,
hardcore technology, and refined parts are in
Pro Stock cars. They are not in Pro Mods or
fuel cars. We spend hour after hour after hour
on every piston, every rod that goes in these
motors hand fitting them to the thousandths.
They don't do that in Pro Mod or in the fuel
classes. They just pop another set of pistons
in her, pop another set of rods in her, pour
more nitro in her, more alcohol, or whatever
they run. That doesn't happen in our class and
that's why we like it so much. It takes so much
thought, so much time, so much effort. Everything
has got to be perfect to make these things run
like they run. I don't see that in the other
classes and that's why we're threatened by them.
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