The Many Hats of
Greg Anderson
The six-time NHRA Pro Stock world champion reflects on career accomplishments, evolution, and learning
BY NATE VAN WAGNEN • PHOTOGRAPHS BY RICK BELDEN AND NHRA
It’ s early on a quiet summer morning in rural North Carolina. The engine dynos spread out across race shops in the Mooresville Motorsports Center industrial complex have yet to start making noise for the day, but the gears in Greg Anderson’ s mind are most assuredly spinning. The six-time NHRA Pro Stock world champion is getting ready to head to Charlotte Douglas International Airport to fly off to Seattle for the NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways, where the KB Titan Racing rigs and race cars are already set up and ready for the weekend.
But just because the team’ s multi-car operation – including Anderson’ s HendrickCars. com Chevrolet Camaro – is 2,800 miles away doesn’ t mean Anderson can sit idle at the shop. There’ s always something to work on when you’ re tasked with creating horsepower for several of the most competitive cars in a class where, as Anderson says,“ horsepower is king.”
“ My day-to-day is to get here as soon as I can every morning and work as long as I can on trying to find one more horsepower, two more horsepower,” Anderson says from the KB Titan Racing shop, just around the corner from Mooresville Dragway.“ You think about it nonstop, and anything you think about, you show up at the shop the next day and you’ re trying to build that widget to try and find yourself another horsepower.”
This is a mindset Anderson has developed over the course of a career that stretches back decades. He spent 12 years racing with“ The Professor,” Warren Johnson, where Anderson focused on the firewall back. When he went out on his own with team owner Ken Black in 2001, he hired Rob Downing to be his crew chief, freeing him up to learn how to work on engines. Jason Line, a past NHRA Stock Eliminator world champion, joined the team and further accelerated Anderson’ s engine education. ➤
DragIllustrated. com
95 Drag Illustrated