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NATIONAL HOT ROD ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 9, 2015Erica Enders-StevensSCOTT SMITH: We are joined by Erica Enders. Erica is the driver of the Elite Motorsports Chevy Camaro. She is the 2014 Pro Stock world champion. This is the first time she goes into the playoffs as the No. 1 seed. She has six wins this season, one runner-up finish, and five No. 1 qualifying positions. She won the most recent event at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals. Erica, let's start quick looking back at Indy. You said after the race it was going to take you a couple days to decompress and take it all in. What are your thoughts about winning Indy, which is also that last race before the playoff starts? ERICA ENDERS: Winning Indy was a huge accomplishment for my entire team and I. It was my first U.S. Nationals win, along with my crew chiefs, Rick and Rickie Jones and Mark Ingersoll. It completed him winning a race on every track on the tour. Rick told me he'd been trying to win the U.S. Nationals for 45 years. My team owner as well. It was just a huge win, an emotional win for sure. We came off the win in Brainerd, went to Indy. Won at Indy. We want to carry that momentum. You want to start off the Countdown on the right foot. Like Eddie said a minute ago, these are the six most important races of the season. You have to have as little parts failure as you can. You have to change things out more frequently than you would have before just to stay ahead of the game. I'm really excited, to be honest with you. I'm very optimistic about the final six. I know that my guys are, as well. SCOTT SMITH: We'll take questions for Erica. Q. You have an opportunity to do something actually Shirley never did, which is go back-to-back with NHRA point Championships. Is that something you thought about? How difficult do you think that's going to be going into the final six races where you're the person everybody is aiming for? ERICA ENDERS: Yes, I've definitely thought about it. Obviously that's every team's goal out there, to go win the World Championship. It's extremely competitive in Pro Stock, as you all know. To be able to accomplish what we did last year as a brand-new team is pretty unheard of. Having said that, our season up to this point matches our championship season, and we haven't started the Countdown yet. I'm very excited about what's to come. I think we can do it. I put my money on us way more than anybody else because I know exactly what we're capable of in high-pressure situations. It would be awesome to get it done. Like I said, there are nine other guys that want to do it, too. Q. Just a few weeks ago you had back-to-back second-round losses at Sonoma and Seattle. Maybe didn't look as promising. This is the second time this year you guys have come back from races like that and done something pretty remarkable. Talk a little bit about how you felt leaving Seattle, what you thought you needed to do to gain some momentum going into the championship. ERICA ENDERS: Seattle was a very interesting race for us. We made mistakes as a team that we have never made before. It cost us that round win against Jake. Jake is one of the best drivers Pro Stock has ever seen. We knew we had to bring our A game up there. The fact he's our teammate, we know the crew chiefs, same ones that work on my car. We went up there and things didn't go right for us. Fortunately enough Jake waited for us and we were just really rushed and things were going crazy. We didn't rise to the occasion and had to regroup after that race. That's something that is so precious about my team is that winning or losing, we have the same mentality, we have the same attitude. Yeah, it would be easy to get down in the dumps, but Richard Freeman, my team owner, is a great leader of people. He doesn't allow for negative attitudes. He makes sure we're all swimming in the right direction. I attribute to what we accomplished after Seattle to Richard and my guys. It would be really easy to be like we had a sucky weekend and that's it. But we didn't. Regrouped, went out and won Brainerd and Indy back-to-back. Q. Erica, it seems like the Pro Stock rules are at least heading more down the road toward manufacture involvement, more identity with the car compared to the street car. Do you feel that's true? Do you feel like your relationship with Chevrolet gives you a leg up there? ERICA ENDERS: I guess I feel like we're leading that way a little bit. But we're still going to remain Pro Stock, factory Hot Rod. Back in the day they always said, Win on Sunday, sell on Monday. Fans have got to be able to identify the vehicles that we race on the racetrack with the ones they want to purchase at the dealership. Yes, but having said that, Pro Stock is such a crazy competitive class that is so intricate in how we prepare things. Yes, Chevrolet's relationship with Elite Motorsports is extremely important. Of course, all the main guys from Chevy Performance were at the U.S. Nationals this weekend, being that it was the banner race. We had a handful of meetings with them. We have in the past while NHRA was negotiating these rule changes. We've all been on the same page from day one. They are going to help us as much as they possibly can. Their goal obviously is the same as ours: to put a Chevy Camaro in the winner's circle, then to go on and win the World Championship. We're going to do as much R&D as we can over the off-season. We have a lot of work in front of us, having to switch from carburetors to fuel injection, then turning power curve way down to 10,500 rpm is going to be very interesting. But I've got the best guys in the world on it and I'm very confident about it. Q. Eddie was talking about his relationship with Harley Davidson. Is it the same with Chevrolet, do they help you with parts, or help with wind tunnel work? ERICA ENDERS: Yeah, Chevrolet has provided us with wind tunnel testing time. That's going to be crucial with this new hood, the intake that we're going to have to put on the front to bring air into the motor. That wind tunnel time is crucial. They've obviously helped before with blocks and heads that they provide for us. Then, of course, we go to work on them and make them into what they are for our Pro Stock racing. Our relationship with Chevrolet is great. I'm proud to drive for them. They've gotten more heavily involved in our team and what we're doing, especially since our success in 2014. So their help is much needed and very much appreciated. Q. You mentioned that you're really optimistic following up this championship season, you feel good up until this point. Do you feel any added pressure going into the Countdown as the No. 1 seed? ERICA ENDERS: No, I don't. I'm actually really excited to be in the No. 1 position 'cause that 30-point bonus would have significantly changed things at Pomona last year when it came down to the final round at the final round at the final race with Jason and I. Had I lost that round, I would have lost the championship by one point. So every point matters. That round at Indy against Greg Anderson in the semis, we knew what it meant. To be honest with you, it felt like we were back at the World Finals at Pomona last year. It was so important. We were able to get it done. We still have a ton of work cut out for us going into the Countdown. Greg and Jason and the guys at KB, Chris McGaha, they all really have great horsepower, but so do we at Elite Performance. We weren't the fastest car at Indy. You bet your butt our guys are back in the shop working on that to see if we can find some more horsepower and get our act together for the Countdown. Q. What does it mean to you having won Indy and now being able to look back and see your name in the record books with Shirley Muldowney? ERICA ENDERS: It's crazy. I really had trouble during my interviews following the win putting it into words. It's hard to explain. I mean, we've accomplished a lot as a team. To just think that I got my first Pro Stock win three short years ago, then to be able to match our wins with my childhood hero, Shirley Muldowney, after Indy was pretty surreal and cool for me and my entire team. It was one thing left on our bucket list we hadn't been able to accomplish yet. I came close to winning Indy in 2012, didn't get it done, didn't quite understand why things happened that way. I'm a firm believer in that there's a plan bigger than mine. Doing it with the right people is important. That was an awesome accomplishment. I honestly don't know how to describe it. The passion and the heart and the time and the money, just dedicating your entire life to the sport, for me it took 23 years to get it done, and my crew chiefs it took 45 years. It's crazy to think about that and to have finally have had it happen. Q. Erica, obviously it's your first time going into the Countdown competition as a champion from last year. Are you comfortable with your performance this year as compared to last year? Do you feel your championship experience will help you with the upcoming pressure? ERICA ENDERS: Yeah. I mean, I definitely feel comfortable with our performance. But having said that, we're not going to relax or take our foot off their throat, quote-unquote. It's such an important deal to all of us. We want to be able to accomplish this year what we accomplished last year. We have suffered together as a team after we won Indy. We're just looking at the things we've done this year. Like I mentioned a second ago, all of 2014 we won six races, set a couple records, went on to win the championship. At this point in the season, we've won six races in the K&N challenge. Hopefully we go on to win the World Championship as well. What we learned last year performing together as a team is priceless. It's very different to be chased rather than to chase. We just want to go into the Countdown with the mindset we had last year: we have nothing to lose, nothing to prove, we'll let God do the rest. I have all the faith and confidence in the world. We're going to go out there and swing for the fences. Q. What crossed your mind the moment you saw that you had won the U.S. Nationals? ERICA ENDERS: I just, like, was waiting. I go from shutting the car off right at the finish line, because it's important not to over-rev these Pro Stock cars. So I shoved the clutch in, my eyes immediately go to the guard wall where the win light is. It felt like it took a second to light up. I'm pretty sure I was screaming really loud on the radio to my guys. My crew chief was like, You busted my eardrum. It's so exciting. It's such an accomplishment. It goes right up there with winning the championship. I try to be really tough. I hate to be a girl sometimes and have a little extra emotion. But I've never cried at a race win before. At Indy it was really hard to swallow. It was such a huge accomplishment for my entire team. It's something we've all wanted to do for so long. To be able to do it by not being the fastest car out there, dig deep, all of us and race with all the heart we had, we were able to come out on the good side. It was such a huge bonus and honor to be able to race alongside my teammate Drew Skillman. What he's accomplished in his rookie year is amazing. It took me seven years to get done what he's done this year. Having said that, when I taught him how to drive coming into this year, I told him I spent a decade screwing up, having to learn things for myself because people didn't want to teach me the right way. I wanted him to be able to learn how to bypass all of those mistakes that took me 10 years to learn. He's just done a tremendous job. For our entire Elite Motorsports camp, it was just a huge accomplishment and I could not have been more excited. I woke up the last two days in a row thinking, Is this for real or am I dreaming? It's definitely a surreal position to be in. I just feel so blessed to work with an incredible group of men. We have so much fun together, and we're being successful while we have fun, which is a huge added bonus. Q. Do you now feel more prepared heading into the final rounds than you ever have in your entire career? ERICA ENDERS: I do. I mean, to be honest, I feel like we as a team learned a lot about ourselves last year, being able to perform well in those high-pressure situations. Behind the scenes, of course, your stomach is in a knot. I joked last year going into the final round, I mean, I could have puked. I think my crew chiefs were the same way. So much is on the line for one round. We were pretty tough. That's something that we learned. So, you know, I've become a much better driver with the guys that are surrounding me now. My Elite Motorsports team have helped me so much. I feel even in crazy situations when things break, things go wrong, you're rushed, you're not in sequence, I've learned how to overcome those feelings and just be able to block that out. I feel like I can have anything thrown at me and we can have anything thrown at us and we can come out on top. That's something that we had to learn and had to acquire over the years. Going into this Countdown, yes, I feel like we are the best that we have ever been and I'm very, very excited about what's to come. Q. Remember those days when you used to drive for Jim Cunningham, were those days when you were out of a ride and went and drove a Pro Nitrous car, did you ever envision in a million years where you're sitting right now? ERICA ENDERS: I always hoped and dreamed that I would be able to have accomplished what we do. But I don't know if I ever thought it would ever happen. I mean, to be honest, I want to race so bad. I'll drive anything. But my heart is in Pro Stock. I feel like I've waited my entire life, my entire career to be teamed up with a group of guys like I've got now. That makes it so much more fun and so much better. I mean, people are the most important part of the puzzle. I feel like I say that an awful lot. You can have all the money in the world, all the sponsors, the parts, whatever, but you can't buy what we have at Elite Motorsports. That makes it that much more special. So I had hoped we'd be in this position. But to be honest, after what happened to me in 2013, leaving Cagnazzi where I raced so long, Dave taking over that ride, I was over it. I have an education, I can make way more money than I make drag racing. I thought about just being done with it. Richard Freeman saved me. We've been friends for a really long time. He talked to me about coming to drive for him. We were able to put something together when everything fell apart. That's just another life lesson for me. I go to schools and speak to younger kids and talk about the importance of setting goals, having a positive mental attitude. I obviously need to listen to myself at some of those speeches. But had I quit, I would never have been able to experience what I've experienced with this great group of guys. I'm so glad and so thankful. We're going to just keep on trucking as long as we can. Q. You mentioned being a little bit more emotional than other times. I'm not going to say you attributed it to being a female driver because you don't like for me to say those kind of things, but how much of a chip did you have on your shoulder or how big was the chip on your shoulder when you came back with the elite performance that you wanted to prove to the world something? ERICA ENDERS: It was pretty big. I mean, that's something that I pray to God a lot. I struggled with it as a human, as a Christian, and I needed to get better at it. Richard has really helped me with my attitude, don't sweat the small stuff type of deal. That's helped me to be a better driver, as well, and certainly to have a lot more fun and not worry about it. But we were able to come out and prove to everybody that we could do it. We were the underdog and the misfits, whatever people have branded us. We accomplished everything we wanted to. It was really cool to put an exclamation point at the end of the season our first year together as a young, under-funded team. To be able to skip two races and win the World Championship, it just says so much of what we're capable of together. SCOTT SMITH: Erica, as always, thank you very much for your time. We look forward to seeing you when we get started back in Charlotte next weekend. ERICA ENDERS: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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