Erica Enders won her 33rd career race and fourth of the 2021 season but the margin of victory at the finish line was just two thousandths of a second, or just a few inches at nearly 210 mph.
“I always put it in high gear and check and I knew exactly where Dallas was. I knew it was going to be close,” said Enders. “I was legging it and shoving the throttle pedal through the firewall. We just needed to have Greg stumble a little and we needed to go to work on our program and I needed to work on myself. I’ve been struggling a little bit. Tim Freeman and Mark Ingersoll, my two crew chiefs said ten or better and you can’t lose. I was .010 and Dallas was .001 and these kids are keeping us honest and making us work for it. Again, it’s going to be a dog fight.”
Greg Anderson's championship lead is now just 17 points over Enders.
RPM Round By Round:
Round 1 - Enders faced off against Bo Butner in the first round and they both have 11 victories against the other when they have faced off previously. Butner started with a slight advantage but at the stripe it was Enders with the win. She ran a 6.559 at 209.98 MPH.
Round 2 - Aaron Stanfiield awaited Enders in the second round and he looked to avenge the controversial loss in North Carolina. Enders has a 3-1 advantage in previous meetings and this ended up being a great race to the finish with Enders having the edge by about 4 feet. She ran 6.578 at 208.88 MPH.
Round 3 - The semi's presented Mason McGaha who Enders had defeated in all 3 of their previous races. McGaha had the lead from the start but Enders was even by 300 feet. She hit the stripe first by about 9 fee with a run of 6.592 at 206.54 MPH. This will be Enders 5th final of 2021 and the 60th of her career.
Round 4 - Enders faced off against Dallas Glenn in the final who she has only raced against once. While Glenn hoped to even their record, he literally came up about 10 inches short in the closest race of the day. Glenn was almost perfect at the launch with a .001 RT but was still just a little short with Enders running a 6.572 at 207.24 MPH. For the 4th time this year and the 33rd time in her career, its Enders taking home the Wally.
Check out the full recap by Kevin McKenna:
Photo by NHRA