DRO: So what should NHRA do to promote Pro Stock beyond allowing faster cars?

Anderson: I don't know, maybe it's a case where they make the drivers stars or heroes. Promote the drivers. They don't do that at all. They surely do it with John Force; they surely do it with Brandon Bernstein; they surely do it with Larry Dixon, but they don't do it with anybody in Pro Stock. Warren had all those years where he was the king, but they bad mouthed him. They don't want him to be their spokesman or "the guy," but maybe they need to make some of these drivers heroes, so to speak. How you do that, I don't know. They gotta' be approachable guys, happy go lucky guys, and popular guys, and I think there are plenty in this class. NHRA is not trying to push them out in front of the media. That would help.

DRO: What do you want people to know about your team or career?

Anderson: I just want everybody to feel comfortable with the fact that this is an on-going, long-term team we've built here that's going to get better as time goes on. There's no special hijinx going on, no special parts, no trickery, no smoking guns sitting in the

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middle of my floor. It's all team work and hard work and little tiny gains here and there. It's the front bumper to the rear bumper and everything in between. The motor is in between, the transmission, the rear end, the tires, the bodywork, the chassis, they all have to be in perfect working order to run as fast as we are. It's not just they we have more power than anybody else. I could probably put my motor in certain cars out there and it wouldn't even qualify. You gotta' have it all, from front to rear.

And it hasn't happened overnight. Go look at my last five years of steady progression. As the money got better, our equipment got better, and we got better, better, better. I didn't pop on the scene yesterday; I didn't come from nowhere. I had 12 years with Warren and we had a lot of success. People want to say I'm the guy who all of a sudden comes out in Pro Stock, but it's been a long work in progress. I've been working my way up for about 17 or 18 years full time in this class.

DRO: Do the purses and contingency money you win come close to covering your costs?

Anderson: Absolutely no way. It's about $25 grand to win a race; about 20 thousand to win a race plus contingencies. We won 12 races last year and we can't bring back half of what we spent. I don't know what's the answer to that. If I compare it to NASCAR, which is apples to oranges, I know, but their last-place guy makes more than we make winning in three or four races. How does that compare? Well, I guess it doesn't. You just think that we are doing something wrong over here.