Dues Paid: Enders-Stevens Claims NHRA Pro Stock Championship

ERICACHAMP

NHRA Pro Stock driver Erica Enders-Stevens has been toasted in Hollywood as inspiration for the 2003 Disney Channel drag-racing movie “Right On Track.” In 2005, she was the first woman in her class to reach a final round (Chicago). The next year she did it again (Gainesville) and checked off, to use her words, “The Girl Factor” milestone of first to qualify No. 1 (Topeka).

During the next eight years, she got that elusive first victory, in 2012 at Chicago, and added 11 more, including a career-best six this season. She made the Countdown to the Championship field four consecutive times, even despite a shortened schedule. She won the $50,000 K&N Horsepower Challenge bonus race, recorded history again along with Courtney Force as two pro females shared the winners circle at Seattle, and led the standings.

314-EricaEndersStevens-Saturday-ReadingBut along with those highlights have come disappointments.

Enders-Stevens has slogged through one sponsor after another, thinking, hoping each might be the one to carry her to a high groove of success and promotional longevity, only to see the money dissolve and realize she had to use her Texas A&M University marketing lessons in the real world again. She came heartbreakingly close to earning her first victory at the Four-Wide race at Charlotte in 2012 – the win-light came on in her lane, then she and her celebrating crew found out it was an electronic malfunction and that Greg Anderson had won. She had a patch of four seasons in which she drove on a limited basis – only one race in 2008, for example – for ambitious but underfunded teams. She always seemed to teeter on the edge of stardom and a tumble into anonymity.

There’s no way to write ‘how’ on the scorecard. We got it done. That’s all that mattered.

Finally – finally – her moment as NHRA Pro Stock series champion came.

But when it did, at the recent Auto Club Finals at Pomona, Calif., Enders-Stevens was like the newly crowned Miss America whose tiara was askew when it was first placed on her head. She had won a see-saw points-lead battle with Jason Line that Nov. 16, regaining the advantage with each of the first three rounds. She had matched Jonathan Gray’s perfect reaction time in the semifinal and defeated him to set up a winner-take-all showdown with Line in the class’ final pass of the year. And both of them had foul starts. His was worse, by nine-thousandths of a second, assuring her the event victory and the championship.

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So all her hard work – all her months of leading the standings, her six-victory success that only Pro Stock Motorcycle’s Andrew Hines equaled, and her patience as the team sat out the Sonoma and Seattle races to prepare for the playoffs – paid off in a quirky ending.

But she said she didn’t care how it happened.

“There’s no way to write ‘how’ on the scorecard. We got it done. That’s all that mattered,” the Royal Purple / Elite Motorsports Camaro driver said after becoming the first female Pro Stock series titlist.

That’s true. She joined three-time Top Fuel champion Shirley Muldowney and three-time Pro Stock Motorcycle champion Angelle Sampey, a fellow New Orleans-area resident, in an exclusive club that Funny Car’s Courtney Force also had a chance to join until the race at Reading, Pa.

363-EricaEndersStevens-WorldChampCeleb-Sunday-Pomona2Enders-Stevens is one of six women who have raced in the Pro Stock class but the only one to win and share a championship distinction with her friends and heroes Muldowney and Sampey.

“I’m so thankful for their help and support in this venture. It means a lot to me to have my name on a list with Shirley Muldowney and Angelle Sampey. They’re incredible racers and incredible women,” Enders-Stevens said.

“Shirley has been very supportive of me, and I’m really appreciative of that because as a kid, and still now at my age [31], I admire the heck out of her and what she’s accomplished in the time period that she accomplished it in. It wasn’t necessarily heard of before for a female to compete with or even be dominant in a male dominated profession, so I admire her very, very much and to have her support means a lot to me. It always seems that when I need some advice, my phone rings, and it’s like she knew I was thinking about her or something. But she spells it out for you and she’s very straightforward, and that’s what I need to hear.

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She’s done it all. She’s been through it all, and I could sit there for hours and listen to her stories. She’s got 18 national event wins and world championships, and so she’s been there and she’s done that, and she can help me with my mindset and what to focus on and what to not dwell on. She’s just been a huge help and a huge inspiration.”

Enders-Stevens and Sampey have supported each other, especially during Sampey’s 2014 comeback.

I think any female racer will tell you that we just want to be looked at as a driver. The car doesn’t know the difference in gender, and it certainly doesn’t matter to me.

But Enders-Stevens put “The Girl Factor” to rest, saying what the others before her have said:  “I think any female racer will tell you that we just want to be looked at as a driver. The car doesn’t know the difference in gender, and it certainly doesn’t matter to me.”

She said her championship might “show any other females that maybe even had a little bit of doubt that they weren’t capable or whatever that I’m a perfect example of a normal kid through hard work and certainly surrounding myself with the right people and having such a solid support group that anything is possible, and I hope that’s the message that comes across to them.”

Enders-Stevens had some incredible men to credit, as well.

“I give God all the glory, but it’s teamwork. Teamwork makes the dream work. I was a little kid with a big dream. I feel blessed,” Enders-Stevens said. “This is the first time in my professional career that I have had such a solid group of guys that stands behind me and has my back.”

171-EricaEndersStevens-Saturday-NorwalkHer run for the championship, she said, was “perfect proof that with the right group of people anything is possible and that’s all through God.”

Team owner Richard Freeman, she said, “is just an awesome guy to work for. He’s really great at managing people and making everyone feel important. He’s great at communication. We have team meetings, and we all always just stay on the same page. I think that’s how you make any relationship work. He’s done a really great job with that, and he’s made it very evident that if we’re not having fun, we’re not going to do it. We can spend our money elsewhere and do something different. We have a blast together. People are the most important part of the puzzle, and Richard has certainly organized an elite group of people.”

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A key piece of that puzzle fell into place when Rickie Jones, who won the season finale in 2013, unselfishly agreed to step from the car and allow Enders-Stevens to take her shot. He and father Rick Jones, the respected race-car fabricator, shared tuning duties for her this year. And the Galesburg, Ill., duo coordinated with the rest of the Oklahoma-based crew to make the organization work like a Swiss watch.

361-EricaEndersStevens-Sunday-Pomona2“It’s just awesome, and we do have a blast, whether we’re out to eat or at the racetrack winning and losing together. It’s always a fun time. That makes my job as a driver a lot easier. It’s a team deal, and it’s just a really unique atmosphere. And I’m really proud and honored to be their driver. But they have shown exactly what they are made of this year, and when it comes down to crunch time, everybody pulls their weight, and it’s an awesome environment to work in. Win, lose, or draw, we love each other and that’s all that matters.”

It appears they’ll be together for awhile. Even before the Final, Enders-Stevens told WFO Radio’s Joe Castello, “The sky’s the limit for our team. I’m very optimistic about our future together at Elite Motorsports with Chevrolet, Rick Jones, and Rickie Jones. It’s going to be a great deal for us for the next few years and hopefully a lot of years to come.”

Our plan is the same for 2015 as it was for this year. We’re going to start off committing to 15 races and piece the rest together.

She told Castello just after a productive visit to the SEMA Show – which followed her Countdown victory at Las Vegas – that she might have enough funding in 2015 to compete full time.

“Our plan is the same for 2015 as it was for this year. We’re going to start off committing to 15 races and piece the rest together,” Enders-Stevens said. “But judging by some meetings we had [following the SEMA Show at Las Vegas after her victory there], we probably will be able to run a full schedule. It’s going to depend on sponsorship. Hopefully our on-track success will spike a little more interest and we can piece together some associates and get ‘er done again.”

The question might be how she’ll accomplish that.

Images courtesy NHRA/National Dragster

About the author

Susan Wade

Celebrating her 45th year in sports journalism, Susan Wade has emerged as one of the leading drag-racing writers with 20 seasons at the racetrack. She was the first non-NASCAR recipient of the prestigious Russ Catlin Award and has covered the sport for the Chicago Tribune, Newark Star-Ledger, St. Petersburg Times, and Seattle Times. Growing up in Indianapolis, motorsports is part of her DNA. She contributes to Power Automedia as a freelancer writer.
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