Say Hi To Dad

Continued from Meet Erica Enders

He knows he’s sent his middle child off to race in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Pro Stock series with a kindred spirit in Victor Cagnazzi, and now he can only watch, shake his head and smile.

Enders remembers like it was yesterday going to Houston Raceway Park and working with John Harden to build one of the first working junior dragsters in existence back in 1993 (the car now sits in the Wally Parks Museum in California).

Then there were the shake-down sessions “where I stood on the back of the car to make sure I had access to the kill switch until we made a few passes. I was surprised how much faster it accelerated than a go-kart (and how hard he had to hang on for dear life).”

He remembers making a basic booklet of drag racing strategy and terminology for Erica to study. Just like her other courses, she aced it.

There was the first weekend at Houston Raceway Park, where the squirt won. Then a Division 4 championship race down the road. “I saw her that day and realized that was it for Pops in a race car,” said Gregg, who had raced sprint cars, drag cars and boats in his native Phoenix and said, “I’d undergone successful IQ bypass surgery.”

But as Erica and little sister Courtney developed as racers and their older brother Tom got into golf (he now is Marriott Golf’s Director of Marketing), their father could take one consolation. “One recurring nightmare was having to spend my life in a velvet chair watching ballet and piano recitals,” Gregg said.

As the miles wracked up on the race hauler, and the trophies piled in, the dreams got bigger. The day Erica turned 16, she graduated from Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing school, went into Super Comp racing and thought she wanted to ride a 330-mph Top Fueler like Shirley Muldowney, Shelly Anderson or Rhonda Hartman-Smith.

The story was so good that Enders, CEO of a tech company in Houston, tried to market the tale to Disney. It went nowhere – until the girls were featured in People Magazine after one of Erica’s 37 junior wins at a race in Dallas. “A Disney producer saw the article while sitting in the airport waiting out a rain delay in Houston – and got his office to find us,” said Enders. The made-for-TV film, Right on Track, is the most successful ratings hit in Disney Channel history. “Amazing how things work.”

Amazingly, Enders opted for the less glamorous, but perhaps more challenging world of Pro Stock, and detoured into Super Gas.

A win at her home track in Houston last spring led to several interviews with the media – and they eventually caught the ear of Pro Stock driver Steve Johns, who passed them on to his boss, Victor Cagnazzi, who decided the youngster was worth investigating.

Enders is happy where his daughter landed. “Like me, Victor and his brother built a tech company. Then he sold it and then went racing. We’re on the same page and I think his team is a great place for my daughter to be.”

Gregg Enders believes the junior dragster training will give her an edge the class hasn’t seen. “Erica’s grown up cutting lights and focusing on the job at hand. And I think that will be part of her particular genius in Pro Stock. She won’t have to go to the line worrying about the rod struts she put in, or the valve noise or the tire pressure. She will know the team has that handled. All she’s gotta do is cut the light, hit her shifts and run. . . for the kids (coming out of juniors), the Christmas Tree’s another video game.”

Years ago, Bob Frey interviewed young Erica at the track and commented on the string of great reaction times she’d laid down. When asked for her secret, she said “Sir, it’s ‘Yellow-Go’ ”

As Frey said, “Sometimes we forget how simple it can be.”

Or how special the simplest moments can be -- like talking Father-to-Daughter under a race car.

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