First female Pro Stock winner

Erica soaking it all in

Erica Enders made history last Sunday when she became the first female to win an NHRA Pro Stock race, regardless of sanction. This also marks the 12th time a female has won an NHRA Pro category race. She follows in the footsteps of, amongst others, Shirley Muldowney,  Shelly Anderson-Payne, Angele Sampey, and Ashley Force-Hood.

In getting to her seventh career final, Erica beat Kurt Johnson, Vincent Nobile and V. Gaines at the O'Reilly Auto Parts Route 66 Nationals. In the final round, she led points leader Greg Anderson all the way down the track to win with a e.t. of 6.627 seconds at 207.40 mph.

side-by-side racing doorslammers

The fact that it took longer than we all had hoped made it all the sweeter, for she had been banging on the door for a while now. And to win against none other than Greg Anderson, the man who didn't want to be "the one" to go down in history as loosing to a female for the first time.
Personally, I don't believe there's anything wrong with that, seeing that hard working women have made it to the top of their "game", be it in business, government or sports.

"It's awesome," said Enders. "I think that if I could have planned it, I would have asked to run Greg in the final. You know that he made it very clear he didn't want to lose to me. He's a very competitive guy, and I love him to death, but I couldn't wait to beat him."

FulTrot's followers will attest that I have been predicting that Erica's day would soon come. And there were many others who did so too, for her crew went nuts back at the starting line, as they screamed in the team's headsets. Crew chief Dave Connolly gave a great interview as well, saying that this win as crew chief was more gratifying than a win as a driver. Coming from Dave, one of the sharpest driver's in the Pro Stock category, says a lot about the win.

The video below shows the match up, race, celebrations and subsequent interviews:



The 28-year-old Houston-native and started driving in the Pro Stock category back in 2005, when car owner Victor Cagnazzi gave her the opportunity to drive a Pro Stock car, knowing that she had never let out the clutch of a race car before. Her rise as a youthful drag racer was portrayed in a Disney original movie "Right On Track".

"Twenty years, from the time I was eight years old in the Junior Dragster this has been a dream of mine and I have worked my butt off to get here," Enders said of the historical victory. "For all the kids (and forty-year-olds) who were told they couldn't do it. You CAN do it."

Erica and Team in the winner's circle

One of the first persons to congratulate Erica was the godfather of Pro Stock, Bob Glidden, who called her on her cell right after ESPN's interview.

Congratulations to Erica, her crew and team owner Victor Cagnazzy on the historical win. Great job Dave, although I'd rather see you behind a steering wheel though. That's where you belong.

Thanks for reading.

Source: NHRA, CompetitionPlus, Wikipedia.
Photo credit: NHRA, Mark J. Rebilas.