Final Round Holeshot Sends Erica Enders To The Winner’s Circle, Win/Runner Up For Elite Motorsports

For the entirety of her professional driving career, former Pro Stock world champion Erica Enders has been known for being absolutely deadly on the tree. At this weekend’s NGK Spark Plugs 4-Wide Nationals held at zMAX Dragway just outside Charlotte, she proved once again that reaction time matters, especially in the world of Pro Stock.

When you have cars literally separated by thousandths of a second, every little bit helps, and knocking the tree down pass after pass is basically like finding free horsepower, and in a class where a few horsepower can mean the difference in qualifying number one or missing the show completely, that’s kind of a big deal, and Enders knows it. She’s won many a race on the strength of her stellar reaction time despite have a (ever so slightly) slower car on the track. At the 4-Wides, her car was certainly up to the task, laying down low elapsed time of the weekend in the first round with a 6.500 elapsed time, then recording the quickest time of the second round as well with a 6.517 to earn her way into the final quad. It’s worth noting that she also was the first off the line in each of the first two rounds.

In the final round, Enders would actually leave second with a great .014 light, just on the heels of Chris McGaha’s killer .009 reaction time. Behind Erica would be Drew Skillman with a solid .029 and Vincent Nobile, who was uncharacteristically late with a .095 light. Skillman would shut down almost immediately after shaking the tires. McGaha would also have to push in the clutch after breaking traction in his car, leaving Enders and her Elite Motorsports teammate Nobile to duke it out. However, combining a solid 6.535 elapsed time with her great reaction time was more than enough to hold off the quicker-but-losing 6.520 pass from Vincent.

The win bumps Erica to third in points, just behind most recent race winner Nobile and reigning series champion Bo Butner. Look for Elite to continue their winning ways as the tour takes the short trip south and slightly west to Atlanta Dragway for the Southern Nationals next weekend.