In her quest for a second straight Pro Stock world championship, Erica Enders knows she can clinch the title with a strong performance at this weekend’s 15th annual NHRA Toyota Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
With a stretch that includes three straight wins in Las Vegas, Enders will come in as a betting favorite at the penultimate event of the 2015 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season.
Add in the fact that Enders has already posted a record eight wins in 2015, including two in the Mello Yello Countdown to the Championship, and that favorite status seems to hold up even more. The driver of the Elite Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro also has the chance to win both the spring and fall races in Las Vegas for the second straight year, but she knows that will not be an easy feat.
“We’ve definitely got our work cut out for us,” said Enders, who holds a 154-point lead over Greg Anderson. “By no means is it over yet. It’s our goal to go to Vegas, do the best we can, qualify in the best position we can and win the race. Vegas has been great to us in the past, and we’ve got an 18 consecutive round win streak going on now. We can’t control what the other guys do; we can control what we do. But we’re not backing down.”
Spencer Massey (Top Fuel), Del Worsham (Funny Car), Enders (Pro Stock) and Andrew Hines (Pro Stock Motorcycle) were last year’s winners of the event that will once again be televised on ESPN2. The 15th annual NHRA Toyota Nationals also marks the fifth of six playoff races in the Mello Yello Countdown to the Championship as Enders aims to finish off another historic season.
It took until the final pass of the 2014 season in Pomona for Enders to clinch her first world championship, beating Jason Line in the championship round to become the first female Pro Stock world champion.
This season, Enders and her championship-caliber team, led by crew chiefs Rick Jones and Rickie Jones, have managed to top themselves by giving Enders a chance to clinch the championship before the season-finale, and they’ve done so in record-setting fashion. So far, Enders has stretched her career wins to 20 to sit second on the all-time wins list for females in NHRA history, while her eight victories this year, including her win at the most recent Countdown stop in Dallas, earned her the most wins for a female in a single season.
“We enjoy our success together,” Enders said. “It’s pretty amazing as a new team what we’ve been able to accomplish the past two years. Having said that, it’s short-lived because you go from one race to the next, and you can go from hero to zero really quickly. We enjoy it while it happens, and as the next race approaches, we start with a clean slate and go in with a mindset that anything can happen.
 |
“(Team owner) Richard (Freeman) has organized a great team, and we have the best equipment and the best people. Most importantly, we have fun together, and that’s a big reason why we are as successful as we are on the race track.”
The team has had plenty to celebrate this season, but Enders has been as focused as ever throughout her dominant campaign. Her skill set has been on full display during the Countdown, posting three final round appearances in four events, and picking up wins in Charlotte and Dallas.
Her Camaro went a blistering 6.461 seconds at the Texas Motorplex, and Enders was dynamite on the starting line en route to the win. But as she explains it, that ability to stay focused in pressure situations is made possible by the comfort level her team presents.
“They never cease to amaze me,” Enders said. “When the pressure is on, they show up. It makes my job as a driver a lot more fun and a little bit less stressful because I know I’m going to have a car underneath me and all I’ve got to do is drive it down the race track. Having said that, it’s not as simple as it sounds, but I’ve got the best crew chiefs in the business. I talk about them all the time, but their loyalty, never-quit attitude, passion and support never wavers. It’s nice to have a group that I can count on and take their word and their performance to the bank.
“Every driver prides themselves on how they drive, their reaction times, hitting their shifts perfectly and keeping the car in the groove. We as a team take a lot of pride in how we perform – not just my reaction times, but the ETs that we post on the board.”
There will be plenty of pressure in Las Vegas this weekend, but Enders is prepared to try and finish off the world championship chase. Standing in her way are standouts Anderson, Chris McGaha, who trails Enders by 166 points, Allen Johnson, rookie Drew Skillman, who picked up his first career Pro Stock win in St. Louis, Larry Morgan, Vincent Nobile, Jason Line, Shane Gray and Jonathan Gray.
“What we’re most proud of is the more pressure of a situation we’re in, the better we do,” Enders said. “We rise to the occasion together, and it’s pretty awesome. If you remove yourself from the situation and step back and look at what we’ve been able to accomplish together in the crazy situations that we’ve been able to do it, we rise to the top. I’m so thankful to be with a team that’s capable of that.”
