At the end of the 2010 FIA European Championship, Andersen Racing and Andy Carter decided to go separate ways. Per and Karsten Andersen had to deal with a major problem: not only did they lose a driver but, as Lucas Oil was Carter's personal sponsor, they also had to find new financial backing. With only a few weeks to the Main Event it seemed they might have to park their operation for the 2011 season.

But then came the announcement that American superstar Tommy Johnson Jr. would be the new driver of the Andersen Racing Top Fueler. "Our first priority was to find a good driver. If he had the budget that would be perfect but if he didn't, we would try to find it. Tommy Johnson Jr. was on the shortlist and we met at Pomona. A few weeks before the Main Event we obtained the budget to do the first race of the season, called Tommy and he agreed to come over and race with us. But once this news came out, things moved very quickly and we soon had the funding to do the full European tour. It's a limited budget so we have to take care but it's okay, we can race for the championship," says Per Andersen.

Sunoco is new while Veidec (a long time backer), Landmeco (Karsten's company), Else Marie and the other sponsors stayed with the team. Else Marie came on board when the team wanted to race in the States at the end of the 2009 season. "We made flyers to raise funds for our NHRA tour. A man from Denmark signed in and, when we contacted him for a meeting to ask for the name of the company he wanted on the car, he said, 'Use the name of my wife, so she can see where I spend my money.' He is still one of our backers," says Per.

Andersen Racing's track record is impressive but there are no secrets. "When we started with Jens Nybo we didn't know anything about nitro racing at all. The intention was to race Alcohol Dragster but Peter Lantz convinced Jens to go nitro so we got a call that we were going to race Top Fuel that season. There were no data loggers or computers. After a run you had to look at the parts and get information from the driver to know what happened and make the adjustments for the next run. Maybe that's an advantage now. Of course the computer data are far more important now but we still take a look at all the parts and see if they tell the same story. The computer isn't always correct. Karsten and I make the tuning calls and Jim Brissette is around for the second opinion. Sometimes we have funny ideas and he can tell us we are crazy or it might be good." One thing that did not change this year is the crew. "Last season the crew was new but they all stayed with us. One is from Sweden, the others from Denmark. When they are new to the team we prefer inexperienced crewmembers so we can teach them to work in the way we want them to do it. They learn the basics in the shop and the rest at the races."

After so many seasons and titles, the motivation for Per and Karsten is still the same as when they started racing Top Fuel with Jens Nybo. "We don't want to lose. And once you start nitro racing you are addicted and can't do without it, even though we all have day jobs to fulfil," explains Per. That's also the reason Andersen Racing will stay in the FIA European Championship. "Of course it's great to run the NHRA championship and we will do more races in the near future but it takes far too much time to do the full NHRA tour. We can't do it! 

 
Tommy Johnson Jr and Andersen Racing have connected perfectly from day one