Anderson

The 2003 NHRA POWERade Pro Stock category has been a mere shadow of its former self this year. It's the class which has been the most wide open over the last several seasons (except in 2000 when Jeg Coughlin won 10 races and the championship) with an ever changing regiment of national event winners making the championship run intensely unpredictable.

This year, three drivers have won all 10 races. Greg Anderson and the father-son team of Warren and Kurt Johnson have been a three-car monopoly as the current campaign reaches the halfway point, with both Anderson and KJ having bagged four wins and WJ the other two. Anderson has been the performance point man this year, having reset both ends of the Pro Stock national record in Englishtown, N.J., several weeks ago and his well-financed operation has the necessary resources to take the title in his sophomore year.

This weekend, at the 39th Pontiac Excitement Nationals at National Trail Raceway outside Columbus, Ohio, Anderson will be rolling out a second Pontiac Grand Am flying the colors of Ken Black, owner of the team's major sponsor, Vegas General Construction, and it could be a formidable addition to Anderson's already power-laden team. In reality, his second team car could play a strong role in Anderson's championship intentions.

Jason Line, who won the 1993 NHRA Stock Eliminator World Championship, will drive Anderson's new entry. More recently, Line was one of the veteran carburetion technicians employed by Joe Gibbs on Bobby Labonte's Winston Cup-winning NASCAR Pontiac before moving to Anderson's drag racing venture. This season, Anderson's record-setting performances over the course of the first 10 races have been helped along by Line's expertise, both as a champion sportsman racer and as a key member of Labonte's 2000 title-winning team.

"If you want to win a Pro Stock championship, look around at the category and you see the teams with two cars winning the most," said Anderson, who, like Line, is an accomplished mechanic as well as a driver. "Now with our team expanding to a second car with a driver of Jason's skill and experience, I think we've really helped ourselves tremendously. We're excited about this move and I really, truly believe it's a major step towards the championship for us."

"I have always wanted to drive in Pro Stock," said Line, who began competing in organized drag racing in the upper Midwest about 20 years ago. "This is an opportunity that I've waited a long time for. This weekend, with so many people watching us, it will be important for me to qualify. Right now, that's our main goal."

The last time that a single car team won the NHRA Pro Stock championship was in 1997 when Jim Yates won the second of his two titles. Up until this coming weekend, Anderson appeared to be the driver most likely to do it again, but now, he has doubled his efforts and tapped into the old adage, "There is strength in numbers."

Bill Stephens covers the NHRA for ESPN and ESPN.com.