NHRA Houston Qualifying Results, Elimination Pairings: Camrie Caruso’s Milestone Marred By Incident

Camrie Caruso and Erica Enders, the only two women ever to qualify No. 1 in the NHRA’s Pro Stock class, got together Saturday during the SpringNationals in the shutdown area of the Houston Raceway Park dragstrip—literally.

In just her fifth professional outing, 24-year-old rookie Caruso duplicated Enders’ feat 16 years after the four-time class champion broke the barrier in 2006 at Topeka.

So the tears trickling down Caruso’s cheeks should have been ones of joy. Instead, they represented a jumble of unexpected emotions after Enders’ parachutes damaged Caruso’s Sand Haulers of America Chevy Camaro in an apparent misunderstanding about top-end track etiquette or procedure.

Within minutes, Caruso was all smiles as she and Enders exchanged hugs and Enders brushed tears from the young racer’s face and playfully, in big-sister-like fashion, slapped the top-qualifier’s yellow Camping World hat onto Caruso’s head. The situation was defused quickly, but Caruso’s crew faced some repair work into the night.

The incident occurred when the veteran and newcomer went head to head on the racetrack in the final qualifying session, with Enders trying to capture Caruso’s provisional top starting spot. Caruso held onto it by nine-thousandths of a second (6.547 seconds to 6.556).

However, a turnout snafu, along with a late-afternoon breeze, sent the parachutes from Enders’ Melling Performance Camaro crashing over the top of Caruso’s car. When they stepped from their race cars, Enders said something to Caruso, who declined to repeat it.

“Doesn’t matter,” Caruso said, “We're going to focus and get it fixed and go move on. Is what it is.”

Later, she said, “The race car’s going to get fixed. It’ll be all good. It’ll be ready for race day.”

And so will Caruso, who said after composing herself, “It could have been anybody. She’s a great racer, and I’m sure she didn’t want the incident to happen, either. Sucks that it happened. But it’s racing, and anything could happen.”

Enders, who has weathered more cruel remarks in her career than she cares to remember, said, “I hate it for her, because they're going to talk about that crap instead of her being No. 1. That's her first No. 1 qualifier, but they'll joke all they want about two girls being on the racetrack at the same time. But you know, whatever.”

Still, the two had different versions of what happened.

“Well, we crossed and then she shot past me, right? So, I tucked in to follow her around, and as we're making the turn, she just dead stopped on an active racetrack. So I swerved to the right to not hit her and I mean, you just coast around the corner,” Enders said.