{"id":93604,"date":"2023-11-22T07:03:34","date_gmt":"2023-11-22T15:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=93604"},"modified":"2023-11-22T07:03:34","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T15:03:34","slug":"erica-enders-is-the-queen-of-pro-stock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/erica-enders-is-the-queen-of-pro-stock\/","title":{"rendered":"Erica Enders IS The QuEEn of Pro Stock"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Erica Enders hoisted the final Camping World Drag Racing Series Pro Stock championship trophy as she earned her sixth class title – NHRA photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Erica Enders\u2019 sixth Camping World Drag Racing Series Pro Stock championship didn\u2019t appear achievable at the start of the 2023 season during the 54th Gatornationals, held last March at Gainesville Raceway. She had difficulties from the start, not being able to get her Chevrolet Camaro race car to run in a first-round bout against rookie Elite Motorsports teammate Jerry Tucker. It didn\u2019t get much better through the first part of the season and felt a bit like 2016 when Enders\u2019 team elected to run Dodge Dart equipment.<\/p>\n

Dodge power wasn\u2019t the right fit for then two-time champion Enders and her Richard Freeman-led Elite Motorsports crew. They returned to the Chevrolet Camaro racecar and haven\u2019t looked back ever since. This was the same year NHRA decreed electronic fuel injection for the Pro Stock class and changed the looks of the cars; of course there was a learning curve involved in that adoption, but the Dart just didn\u2019t cut it for Enders or her then-teammate, Jeg Coughlin Jr., currently a five-time Pro Stock champion.<\/p>\n

The 2023 Pro Stock season was a roller-coaster ride for Elite Motorsports and its star driver – okay, let\u2019s call her the QuEEn of Pro Stock. It took until the late March Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals in Pomona for Enders to gain her first round win in eliminations. In a Pro Stock world where there always seems to be a battle between Elite and KB Titan Racing, Elite and its then-five-time champ Enders just weren\u2019t getting the job done. Still, they never lost faith and put proverbial nose to grindstone to rise from the 15th place standings for their star driver.<\/p>\n

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Enders came into the season finale as the leader and left as a six-time champion – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The turnaround began in mid-summer and arched through the balance of the \u201cregular\u201d season that ended with the Dodge Power Brokers U.S. Nationals on Labor Day weekend in Indianapolis. The six-race Countdown to the Championship began with the next event and, with only three races to go in the Countdown and the season, Enders found herself in a familiar position. After going to the semifinal rounds in the opening three stanzas of the Countdown, and having to meet regular competitor and nemesis KB Titan\u2019s Greg Anderson in two losing semifinal bouts in those first three races, Enders found herself in familiar territory in Texas and Las Vegas, two of her favorite tracks: the Winner\u2019s Circle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI questioned myself. It\u2019s easy to get down on yourself and doubt yourself,\u201d Enders mused. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to be positive when you\u2019re winning; it\u2019s when you\u2019re going through all the troublesome times when you have to fight with all you\u2019ve got. It\u2019s definitely a gut check and something that\u2019s not easy to go through. We just went to work,\u201d she explained, \u201cand it just shows you what happens when you don\u2019t give up.\u201d<\/p>\n

It all came down to the final race of the season, the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip in mid-November. Again, the battle raged between Enders and her Elite team against Anderson and his KB Titan squad. By the time four rounds of qualifying were complete, Enders had the No. 3 position, while Anderson wore the bright yellow cap of the No. 1 qualifier. All she had to do, Anderson\u2019s results notwithstanding, was to win in the first round against teammate Fernando Cuadra. She had the win light and she had a sixth title for her efforts – and for her Elite Motorsports crew.<\/p>\n

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Enders and five-time champ Greg Anderson continually race one another – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Coming off her best year ever, in 2022, Enders had to dig hard and heed her inner champion to rise again. \u201cThe message this year,\u201d she said, \u201cis tenacity and consistency, and digging through all of it to prevail when it matters. This championship hits differently because of the fashion in which we got it done. Rallying is what we do,\u201d she stated. \u201cIt makes me so proud to be associated with such a great team. They have a never-quit attitude and that\u2019s why they\u2019re world champions. I\u2019m lucky to be their driver.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a racing series where luck comes into play on a regular basis, Erica Enders had worked her way to third in the standings in September, as the six-race Countdown began in Reading, PA, at the track owned by the Koretsky family, Pro Stock legends who are aligned with KB Titan. In the first three races of the Countdown, Enders secured three straight No. 1 qualifiers. In Dallas, she earned her third win of the season and became, for her efforts, the \u201cwinningest woman in motorsports\u201d with a total of 47 blue winner\u2019s caps and Wally trophies. She followed that up with the Vegas win and suddenly had a considerable lead in the standings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings started to change direction in St. Louis,\u201d she acknowledged. \u201cAfter we won in Dallas, I thought maybe we could actually pull this off. It\u2019s just a perfect lesson, about why you never quit and why you never give up. bAll the chips can be down and you can still come out on top!\u201d<\/p>\n

After beating teammate Cuadra, Enders earned her second-round victory against returning five-time champ Jeg Coughlin Jr., driving the final two NHRA Pro Stock races with Elite Motorsports. She had a very slim .0065-second margin against Coughlin, who is one of the best leavers in the business and got Enders on the tree with his .012-second reaction time to her .030. Still, tenacity won, along with the now six-time champ who pulled out a 6.533\/210.14 lap against Coughlin\u2019s 6.557\/209.92. Now that\u2019s close!<\/p>\n

Both Enders and foe Anderson were gone after the semifinal round; she was defeated by Matt Hartford of KB Titan (and a recalcitrant Camaro) while Anderson fell to eventual race winner Aaron Stanfield of Elite, the reigning Factory Stock Showdown champion. \u201cI\u2019ve said it before but it ears repeating,\u201d noted Elite Motorsports team owner Richard Freeman. \u201cErica Enders is the baddest b*tch on the planet! She is a warrior and she does not give up. I\u2019m so proud of this team!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Enders was gracious in accepting her trophy the day after the finale – NHRA photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In earning her fourth Pro Stock title in the last five years, Enders is now tied with Warren Johnson for the second-most world titles in Pro Stock history and now has 48 national event victories in her record-breaking career. In earning this championship, Enders helped Chevrolet secure the NHRA Manufacturers\u2019 Cup, given to the auto maker whose current model year vehicles accumulate the most points during each NHRA season. Enders joined Chevrolet drivers Robert Hight, John Force, Aaron Stanfield, Greg Anderson, Deric Kramer, Camrie Caruso and Matt Hartford – among others – in helping Chevy secure that title for a seventh straight time.<\/p>\n

Did Erica Enders believe, when she started racing Junior Dragsters at the age of eight, that she could become the most successful woman racer in all of motorsports? Her first Junior Dragster entry is on display at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum; perhaps one day an example of her Elite Motorsports Pro Stock title-winning cars will join that dragster? Still young at the age of 40, Erica Enders has the time to surpass the great Bob Glidden, who earned ten titles in the door-slammer class. Records are made to be broken.<\/p>\n

\n

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Enders, who celebrated her 6th Championship in Pomona this November, has proved herself to be Pro Stock royalty.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":93607,"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":[3465,3470,5029],"tags":[9267,846,1704,3477,7139,877,9474,7,6483],"class_list":["post-93604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","tag-camping-world-drag-racing-series","tag-chevrolet-camaro","tag-elite-motorsports","tag-erica-enders","tag-fernando-cuadra","tag-jeg-coughlin-jr","tag-kb-titan-racing","tag-nhra","tag-richard-freeman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Erica-with-trophy-NHRA-photo-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-olK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93604","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\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93604"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93612,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93604\/revisions\/93612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}