{"id":5258,"date":"2014-04-28T11:42:47","date_gmt":"2014-04-28T18:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=5258"},"modified":"2014-04-28T11:43:28","modified_gmt":"2014-04-28T18:43:28","slug":"ender-stevens-hight-and-brown-roar-in-2014-nhra-houston-oreilly-auto-parts-spring-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/ender-stevens-hight-and-brown-roar-in-2014-nhra-houston-oreilly-auto-parts-spring-nationals\/","title":{"rendered":"Ender-Stevens, Hight and Brown Roar in 2014 NHRA Houston O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Spring Nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"14EricaEndersStevensHoustonLaunch\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Photos:<\/strong> Courtesy NHRA<\/p>\n

The Houston O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Spring Nationals at the Royal Purple Raceway was full of surprises: Pro Stock\u2019s Erica Enders-Stevens made it No. 99 for women in drag racing, while Robert Hight grabbed his third Funny Car win and Antron Brown took top honors in\u00a0 Top Fuel.<\/p>\n

PRO STOCK<\/b><\/p>\n

Erica Enders-Stevens won the O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Spring Nationals in her Elite Motorsports Pro Stock Chevrolet Camaro, scoring Enders’ second win of the season and adding the 99th<\/sup> victory by a woman to the chronicles of the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t an easy road for Enders-Stevens at her hometown track, but she made it to the finals, battling Allen Johnson to end up winning on a holeshot with a 6.594-second pass at 210.60 mph. \u00a0Johnson, the 2012 Pro Stock world champion, ran a time of 6.588 seconds at 210.28 mph. \u00a0Even though Johnson ran the quicker elapsed time, Enders-Stevens\u2019 better reaction time enabled her to keep her slender lead the whole race with a .202-of a second margin of victory at the line.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy team\u2019s been really awesome,\u201d said Enders-Stevens. \u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve had a really consistent race car. \u00a0That\u2019s what it takes Sundays, consistency. \u00a0We had to make a last second transmission change and go through the gears to make sure everything was right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The win was Enders-Stevens\u2019 eighth career victory and her first professional win in Houston. \u00a0She is the current Pro Stock points leader and the only female in Pro Stock history to lead in the points category.\u00a0 She has enjoyed the early successes this season but knows that she must keep it up to remain atop the Pro Stock class.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ball\u2019s in our court,\u201d Enders-Stevens said. \u00a0\u201cWe\u2019ve got to carry the momentum. \u00a0That\u2019s important in this game, and I know I keep saying that, but it\u2019s huge, and we\u2019re going to keep carrying it as long as we can. \u00a0Pro Stock really goes in cycles, so I\u2019m really hoping this is our cycle, and we\u2019re going to keep fighting for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enders, who won in Super Gas in 2004 in the Lucas Oil Sportsman division at Royal Purple Raceway, defeated Matt Hartford, Jason Line and a tough Jeg Couglin to reach her 21st <\/sup>career final round.<\/p>\n

Allen Johnson was the No. 1 qualifier at the event and reached his third final of the season. \u00a0With two wins this season at Phoenix and Gainesville, he leaves Houston second in Pro Stock points trailing EES by 77-points.<\/p>\n

Greg Anderson returned to the cockpit of his KB Racing Summit Racing Chevy Camaro after getting clearance from his doctor after going through heart surgery in February.<\/p>\n

“I’m happy with the way things went, overall,” said Anderson. \u00a0“This weekend certainly answered a lot of questions and cleared up any reservations I had. \u00a0There should be no issue going forward, and nobody is going to give me any more sympathy \u2013 especially any of these racers when I line up against them. \u00a0It’s time to get back to hard-nose racing, and I’m ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FUNNY CAR<\/b><\/p>\n

Robert Hight came out on top again this weekend in Houston where he won for the third time this year, extended his streak of consecutive final round appearances to five to lead all Funny Car contenders in 2014.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: Gary Nastase\/JFR Racing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Sunday\u2019s eliminations, he dismissed Bob Tasca III, Alexis DeJoria, Del Worsham and Jack Beckman to score his 32nd<\/sup> professional career event win, No. 229 for John Force Racing as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like we didn\u2019t even show up on Friday,\u201d Hight said.\u00a0 \u201cIt was horrible. \u00a0On the first run it got through the clutch and wore it out and eventually smoked the tires. \u00a0Second qualifying session we just totally missed it.\u00a0 It was weak and shook, but I didn\u2019t lose faith in my team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey showed confidence and had the \u2018we\u2019ll go get \u2018em Saturday\u2019 attitude. \u00a0We went out there and ran 4.07, 4.08 on Saturday to put us in the No. 4 spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen the first three rounds today ran 4.07, 4.07, 4.07,\u201d said Hight, who won with his quickest pass of 4.055 seconds over Beckman.\u00a0 \u201cYou know how hard that is to do in one of these cars? \u00a0There are so many variables. \u00a0It\u2019s hard to make that many consistent runs in a row, but it shows how good my team is. \u00a0They\u2019re making just tiny changes, and at the last minute. \u00a0They never act like there is a fire drill or anything is out of the ordinary, they just put their heads down and do their job. \u00a0It\u2019s a lot of fun right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Auto Club driver picked up his first professional win at Houston in 2005 and since then has won more Funny Car races than anyone other driver in the category. \u00a0He also scored his 299th<\/sup> round win on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had high expectations coming into this weekend because I got my first win here,\u201d said Hight. \u00a0\u201cMike Neff has owned this place. \u00a0When he drove and tuned his own car he was, well, just like he was today. \u00a0You have high expectations, especially since we\u2019ve been in four straight final rounds. \u00a0We\u2019ve been kind of on a roll here. \u00a0It dates back to Indy,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you win one of these races, it\u2019s an accomplishment. To have this as my third win of the year, just shows how steady my team is and, truthfully, that just puts more pressure on me because when that car goes up there and runs like it does, a bracket car, all I can do is screw it up. I have got to do my job.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you can put three 4.07\u2019s on the board in a row in the heat that mentally wears on your competitors. Some of these Funny Car guys, they\u2019ll roll it in there deep and make their reaction times look good.\u00a0 Not me.\u00a0 I want ET.\u00a0 I want my competitor to be scared and I don\u2019t want to give lane choice away by rolling in deep.\u00a0 Even in the final, I didn\u2019t roll it in.\u00a0 When you have confidence in yourself and in the car, there\u2019s no need,\u201d said Hight.<\/p>\n

In the final round, Hight set top speed in the Funny Car category with a 314.90 mph run.\u00a0 Hight\u2019s average ET on race day was 4.069 seconds.\u00a0 With the win, Hight expands his points lead to 122 over John Force Racing owner and teammate, the all-time winner and 16-time champion himself, John Force.<\/p>\n

TOP FUEL<\/b><\/p>\n

The Matco Tools Top Fuel dragster with Antron Brown at the helm navigated a tricky Houston track surface and thick atmospheric air to win the O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Spring Nationals against Khalid alBalooshi.<\/p>\n

\"14AntronBrownHoustonLaunch\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“It was very draining this weekend here at Houston,” Brown said of the humid weather conditions near the Gulf coast. \u00a0“It felt like we were running a marathon out here this weekend. \u00a0Instead of running like a sprint, it felt like we ran 5,000-kilometers out here. \u00a0That’s what made it so tough on all the teams.”<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s Don Schumacher Racing team continue to be the class of the field having advanced to seven of the last 10 final rounds dating back to the St. Louis NHRA race last September. \u00a0Brown left with the Wally trophy in hand at five of those races, including two weeks ago at the Four-Wide Nationals near Charlotte.<\/p>\n

After creeping up on the tune-up on his dragster this weekend, Brown’s Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald-tuned car started from the No. 2 qualifying position. \u00a0Brown posted his quickest qualifying lap on his final attempt at 3.787-seconds.<\/p>\n

On race day, he bested veteran Clay Millican, DSR teammate Spencer Massey, defending series champion Shawn Langdon, and Langdon’s teammate Khalid al-Baloohi in the final round.\u00a0 Brown notched his second straight win with a 3.793 pass at 317.72 over alBalooshi.<\/p>\n

“We’ve just been able to execute,” Brown said after earning his second career Top Fuel win at the Baytown track (2008). \u00a0“When we have a problem we’re able to fix it from the last round and make it better for the next round. \u00a0This track was good. \u00a0We had shade all weekend long, it was breezy. \u00a0The water grains in the air made our tune-up go haywire where you come up here thinking that you have power because you’re at sea level but all the humidity just sucked the life out of the cars and made it hard to make them go. \u00a0That’s what made it difficult for us this weekend, not just us but everybody. \u00a0We were able to fight through it and to get that win it makes it that much more sweeter because you were able to fight through that adversity to get it done.”<\/p>\n

With his 44th career win, Brown vaulted into first place in the NHRA Mello Yello Series standings a quarter-way through the 2014 season and now enjoys 37-point lead over Doug Kalitta.<\/p>\n

Brown, who won the 223rd race for DSR in Houston, will attempt to win consecutive races at Atlanta Dragway in three weeks.\u00a0 Brown has five career wins at the Commerce, Ga. track, including three in Top Fuel.<\/p>\n

That will be NHRA\u2019s next stop, the Atlanta Dragway for the Summit Racing Equipment Southern Nationals on May 16-18.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"14HoustonVictoryLane\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Houston O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Spring Nationals at the Royal Purple Raceway was full of surprises: Pro Stock\u2019s Erica Enders-Stevens made it No. 99 for women in drag racing, while Robert Hight grabbed his third Funny Car win and Antron Brown took top honors in Top Fuel<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3470,3399,22],"tags":[554,553,82,640,639,440],"class_list":["post-5258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-nhra","category-event-coverage","tag-2014-nhra-mello-yello-drag-racing-series","tag-allen-johnson","tag-antron-brown","tag-erica-enders-stevens","tag-jegs-coughlin","tag-robert-hight"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/14EricaEndersStevensHoustonLaunchFeature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-1mO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5258"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5268,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5258\/revisions\/5268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}