Drag Illustrated Issue 152, January 2020 | Page 59

The Champions of 2019
Perfect
Timing
Erica Enders shares the roller-coaster
ride behind her third NHRA Pro Stock world
championship season with Elite Motorsports
hat was supposed to be
a celebration of an ultimate
triumph to close out the
2019 NHRA Pro Stock sea-
son didn’t exactly start that
way for Erica Enders.
She arrived in Pomona
for the NHRA World Finals
with a comfortable 92-point
lead over teammate Jeg
Coughlin Jr. – a nod to the
performance of the Elite Motorsports teammates in the Countdown
to the Championship – but on Friday of arguably the biggest weekend
of the year, Enders was, well, seething.
She had heard talk of rival KB Racing trying to intentionally race
their way into a first-round matchup with Enders, even if it meant
clicking off early to face the points leader.
It’s not illegal and it is commonplace at the sportsman level – some-
thing Enders’ sportsman brethren talked with her about during the
weekend – but it’s certainly unconventional in the pro ranks.
So while Enders qualified second with a stout 6.538-seconds at
210.93 mph in her Melling Performance/Elite Motorsports Chevrolet
Camaro, longtime nemesis Greg Anderson clicked off to a 6.646 at
187.73 to qualify 15th in an unbelievable stroke of qualifying luck for
their talented team.
It put Anderson against Enders, keeping his teammates Jason Line
and Bo Butner alive in the title chase should he pull the upset.
No matter how it went down, though, it didn’t sit well initially with
Enders, who admitted her emotion on Friday had to change if the
weekend was to go like she hoped.
“I was really mad on Friday and then I’m like, ‘Look, you cannot
control what they’re going to do’ – that’s what I preach all the time,”
Enders says. “I can control what I do and what our team does in our
car, so Saturday I kind of woke up with a different attitude. I’m like,
‘You know what, if you want to race in the first round you better bring
it.’ That was the kind of attitude I had on Friday and Saturday.”
As the layers were peeled back, it turned into the makings of some-
thing special. Anderson deliberately held back to force the matchup
and help his teammates, while Enders got an opportunity for a ca-
reer-defining moment with a third world title on the line.
Anderson and Enders traded barbs after qualifying, and even shared
the stage Sunday morning to promote their marquee matchup. You
could cut the tension with a knife, but Enders was laser focused, even
as the magnitude of it all continued to rise.
By Josh Hachat
Photographs by Rick Belden & COURTNEY ENDERS
D r a g Il l u s t r a t e d . c o m
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Dr ag Illustr ated