Anderson takes zMAX back to back.

Greg doing a burnout

Greg Anderson knew he would have to be at the top of his game to have a winning chance at the Four Wide NHRA Nationals at zMAX Dragway last weekend. Having qualified in seventh place, he fought his way to the final of this unique three-round, four abreast race by being the quickest in each of the first two rounds, where he would race against Vincent Nobile, Erica Enders, and his teammate Jason Line.

As was the case in earlier rounds, this race did not start of without problems, as Erica's scoreboard malfunction gave the erroneous impression that she had won the finals. However, once the NHRA officials reviewed the finish line video (in slo-mo), as is customary, it became apparent that the Summit Racing Pontiac GXP was well ahead at the finish line giving the four-time champion his third home track win and the 72nd of his racing career.

Greg (second from bottom)

"Seeing Jason a car length ahead of me for the whole race, I knew I must have lost to him", said Anderson. "He doesn't red light very often, so I didn't even think of that. I figured I must have been very late, and didn't even bother looking at my win light on the wall. As I came around the corner at the top end I was really bummed, because I was wondering who else might have finished ahead of me. I then saw the TV cameras coming towards me, and realized that I had somehow won."

In Top Fuel, Spencer Massey won by running 332 mph and actually just wanted to go from A to B and make his competitors beat him.

In Funny Car, Robert Hight became just the fifth Funny Car driver to win four consecutive events in NHRA history. His winning run was a 4.076 second pass at 314.83 mph with a reaction time of 0.58 seconds.

The next race will take place April 27-29 at the Royal Purple Raceway, in Houston, Texas.

Thanks for reading.

Source: Doorslammers.com.

Photos courtesy of: NHRA and Drag Illustrated.

The zMAX Dragway

Back on October 17, 2011, I wrote a blog on "TV Tommy" Ivo, who brilliantly thought if two is good, then four must be much better and built himself back in 1961 a four-engined dragster. zMAX Dragway must have been created using the same vision...I think.

The zMAX Dragway is a state-of-the-art quarter mile drag strip, the only one of its kind with four lanes, instead of the customary two, and is the only all-concrete drag strip as well in the U.S.

Tomorrow starts one of the greatest spectacles in drag racing, the so-called Four-Wide Nationals, at the Bellagio of dragstrips. Lucky fans will get to see the fastest accelerating machines on the planet release a 30.000 horsepower assault on zMAX dragway. That's almost more than the entire starting grid of the Daytona 500!

Antron Brown, driver of the Matco Top Fuel dragster explained this event best.

"When you say 'a spectacle,' you're talking about 30.000 horsepower. Raw, ground-pounding, asphalt-ripping horsepower, and we are going to get it done all in one shot. When you hear that thing hit, you're hearing this percussion going, and everybody thinks it's a category 4 earthquake, and it's nothing but our Top Fuel and Funny Cars ripping up that concrete at zMAX Dragway."

Last year's winner, Jack Beckman, explained how he feels to be behind the starting line during the event.

"When we roll up to the starting line, when it's two-wide and the pair in front of us step on the trottle, it's pretty impressive, and I didn't think anything could top that. When you roll up there four-wide and the ones in front of you step on the trottle, our bodies are held up by these big metal poles; I swear it seems like that thing is going to snap in half and the body is going to fall down."

And it is not easy racing here. Tony Schumacher's second-round loss last year stands as a cautionary tale for why Four-Wide isn't so beloved by those in the cockpit.

"I didn't know what the car in the left and right lanes were doing, so I kept pedaling it, blew up, oiled the track down and lost 10 point,"recounted Schumacher. "[The format] forces me to do that. I'm glad it's not in the Countdown, but it's something different. I've got a lot of trophies on the shelf, and I don't have a Four-Wide yet. I want one."

For more information, please click here.

Thanks for reading.

Source: NHRA, Drag Illustrated