How Six-Time Pro Stock Champ Erica Enders Helped a NASCAR Lifer Go All-In on NHRA

• Team owner Harry Melling won a NASCAR Cup championship with Bill Elliott in 1988.

• These days, Harry's son Mark Melling is getting his racing fix and collecting trophies not in NASCAR, but in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series.

• Melling sponsors Elite Motorsports Pro Stock star Erica Enders and teammate Aaron Stanfield in racing series that Melling says reminds him a lot about how NASCAR used to be back in the 1980s.

When race fans see the name Melling, many—at least NASCAR old-timers—think back to the 1980s and to the glory days of the Melling race team in the NASCAR Cup Series with driver Bill Elliott.

With team owner Harry Melling at the top of the Melling Racing masthead, Elliott became one of the sport's superstars and one of the most popular drivers of all time.

Elliott even earned the moniker "Million Dollar Bill" after he won the Winston Million promotion in 1985. Series sponsor RJ Reynolds offered a $1 million bonus for winning three of sport's "Big Four" that year—the Daytona 500, Winston 500 at Talladega, Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte and the Southern 500 at Darlington. Elliott won Daytona, Talladega and Darlington.

In 1988, Elliott with Melling won the NASCAR Cup championship. The racing marriage went on to produce 34 Cup Series wins.

Harry Melling owned the team from 1982 until his death from a heart attack in 1999 at the age of 54. His death led to son Mark Melling not only taking control of the family Melling Tool business, but also becoming the youngest team owner in professional sports before his 30th birthday.

Mark Melling continued to juggle the Cup Series team with the Jackson, Mich.-based family business before closing the doors on the NASCAR operation in 2002.

These days, Mark Melling and Melling Performance Parts are getting their racing fix and collecting trophies in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series as the primary sponsor of six-time Pro Stock champion Erica Enders. Melling also is on the car of Enders' teammate Aaron Stanfield.

"Yeah, we converted a NASCAR guy to drag racing," Enders said during a visit to Melling's headquarters in mid-Michigan.

Turns out, he was an easy convert.

"When I was young, let's say 1979, I remember Bill Elliott loading up his car in the back of a box truck," Melling said. "I mean, it was just a totally different time for NASCAR back then. That's when our family got involved and that's when the Melling business really grew and grew with the sport."

Ultimately, the sport got a little too big for Melling.

"At some point, quite honestly, NASCAR grew away from being the engine parts and beer sponsors of the world, and it became a huge TV show. So we were out of racing for a while because it was really expensive. I was really kind of bummed, a little frustrated, that our own racing operation didn't work after Dad passed.

"We ran a couple years but then we took some time off before a friend of mine brought me to the track for an NHRA event. What I recognized immediately was that the NHRA crowd was the exact same crowd that was at NASCAR in the 1980s."

The rest, you might say, is history as a big name from NASCAR's past has become a big name in NHRA's present as a key cog in the growing Elite Motorsports' Pro Stock empire.

"Yeah, we've had a great run in NHRA," Melling said. "We got involved with Erica, I guess it was about eight years ago, and I started learning about the sport. We just started getting in, and we just saw that it was a great team, great friendship, a lot of great information going back and forth.

"It's just one of those things where I think it's a good two-way relationship because since I used to run a team way back when, I kind of kind get it from the owner standpoint. We have had a lot of humorous conversations between Richard (Elite Motorsports team owner Freeman) and myself."

Championships, as Melling can attest, are championships. They bring out many of the same feelings, whether they're in NASCAR or the NHRA.

"When I was young, I got to go through an era where I watched my dad win a NASCAR championship and be on the stage at the Waldorf," Melling said. "We did that as a family. The whole family got to go and we were so proud of that happening.

"And then we won our first championship in NHRA, it happened to be we were at Pomona and we had the whole family there again. At the award ceremony, I looked around and I said 'Oh my god, how fortunate, how blessed we've been, to not only experience it on the NASCAR side but to be involved so highly on the NHRA side."

Today's NHRA, says Melling, brings him back to the good-old days of NASCAR.

"These are the people that love engines, they love power, they love speed," Melling said. "They're enthusiasts of an automobile. It isn't as much about the TV show or the dramatics. They're just really performance people.

"I'd like to say it's skill that we're where we're at, but I think it's a little bit of luck and a little bit of good blessings.

"NASCAR is still great, and I still love going to the races. I still support it, and I've got friends in NASCAR. But for us and our company, NHRA just makes more sense when we're focused on engine parts. We're focused on performance, and that's what's great about it."

Enders knows Melling is a NASCAR name at its core. She even recently ran into a fan with a stack of Bill Elliott hero cards under his arm who offered her a Melling NASCAR sticker.

"We're proud to be with Melling," Enders said. "All the time, fans come up to us and ask, 'Is that the same Melling that was with Bill Elliott in NASCAR.' Yep. Same family. Definitely a cool association."

The association between drivers and sponsor goes beyond just the weekends at the drag strip. In fact, when Mark Melling bought his son Brendan a COPO Camaro to race, Enders was the one who taught him how to drive it, and her Elite teammate Stanfield helped tune the car.

"I think when they first got involved with our team, they didn't really know how involved they were going to get," Enders said. "But now it's intertwined with their whole family. It's definitely cool the introduction we got to give them into NHRA."

Family is a common theme when talking about Melling and racing... and now Melling and NHRA.

"I think it's awesome the light that's being shined on NHRA drag racing and family," Enders said. "It's obviously something we've loved, and that love stems from my dad and generations before that. And Aaron's dad and grandfather raced. It's one of those big family sports.

"And on the fan side of it, it's so different from NASCAR because every ticket is a pit pass. You have to have like a Presidential security clearance to get into the garage at a NASCAR race. The garage is open to everyone at NHRA. So, it's super fan friendly.

"It's a great bang for your buck, and the fans are the most product-loyal fans on the planet. I'm definitely proud to be a part of it and love it."

That goes for Mark Melling, too.