Enders fighting through a mentally ‘dark’ NHRA Pro Stock season

Erica Enders was writing her NHRA retirement letter after the first round of the Route 66 Nationals in Chicago last month.

The five-time Pro Stock champion had just lost, but while doing so she made the quickest pass of race day. In a season where anything that could go wrong seemingly has for Enders and her Elite Motorsports team, it was another gut punch.

“So, in one point, I’m writing my retirement letter because I suck, but at the other point, you’re like, ‘Oh, well, our race car has turned around, we’re seeing a glimmer of hope,’” Enders said Friday at Bristol Dragway. “We went and tested in Tulsa and proved what we think we found in Chicago.

“It’s hard to sit here and say, ‘Yeah, we found our problem and we’re going to come out here (and succeed),’ because until you get to a national event with the other competitors on the same racetrack, you don’t really have anything to go by. But we feel like we’re definitely headed in the right direction.”

The swing in emotion is, unfortunately, not new for Enders — at least not this year, sitting 14th in the championship standings with two round wins. It’s quite the turn for the veteran and her team, who climbed to the Pro Stock mountaintop in 2014 with her first world title and then set about putting on a masterclass of success and domination in the years to come.

Since the opening weekend of 2023 in Gainesville — when her car didn’t start for the first round of eliminations — it’s been one gremlin after another, days upon days of testing and a constant deciphering of what’s working and what’s not.

More NHRA!

NHRA New England Nationals eliminations shifted to Bristol due to rain

Rain postpones Epping NHRA finals to Monday

Brown, Green take No. 1 qualifiers at NHRA New England Nationals

And for Enders, it’s become a mental game with herself.