Despite Enders' best efforts to prove otherwise, these machines powered by 500 cubic-inch, electronically fuel-injected engines and utilizing five-speed manual transmissions are not easy to drive. But Enders makes it look effortless.

"I had to work really hard at that," she says. "I take a lot of pride in my driving, I want to be the best there ever was and there's a long row to hoe ahead of us but still I feel like we're on a really great path." 

She practiced on a simulator to perfect her launching technique, but also gives her Elite Motorsports team a great deal of credit for both boosting her confidence and teaching her how to work with her clutch setup and linkage. However, in a sport like drag racing, Enders knows the final responsibility is with the driver and that there are no second chances.

"You've got to execute as perfectly as possible, so I really try hard not to let anything get by me," she says. "I just want to be good right then and make it count."

Enders grew up in Houston, with both her and younger sister Courtney following in their father Gregg's footsteps as racers. Erica won her second-ever Jr. Dragster race and dozens more followed. She quickly worked through the Sportsman ranks and in 2004 won her first national event in Super Gas at her home track, Houston Raceway Park. 

She then made her Pro Stock debut with Cagnazzi Racing in 2005. She left Cagnazzi in 2006, but returned in 2011, and in 2012 at Route 66 Raceway near Chicago finally scored her first career Pro Stock win after seven years and seven final-round appearances.

"They always said once you pay your dues and you finally get that first win that the floodgates will open, and for whatever reason they did," Enders says.

She joined the Richard Freeman-owned Elite Motorsports for the 2014 season and won her first championship that year. She followed it up with another in 2015 and won two more titles in 2019 and 2020.

Enders has found a home at Elite Motorsports, where the resources are deep and the team's commitment to her as a driver has allowed her to develop a laser-focus on her job. The Elite team is a family business, with both of Richard Freeman's brothers and two of his nephews serving as part of the operation. Freeman's father, Royce, was also integral to the team before he passed away in the summer of 2022.

"No matter which way you turn, it's family," Enders says. "I've said it a million times, but people are the most important part of the puzzle, and when that's at the forefront of your operation I don't think there's any room for failure. It's just a cool environment to work in."

In addition, Courtney Enders travels to every event and handles her sister's PR and social media. In the words of Erica, she is "the ultimate hype girl."

"She's always in my corner, believes in me when I don't believe in myself," Erica Enders says. "She always pumps me up. I'm really lucky to have her out here."

Family has been important to Enders her whole life, with her immediate family supporting her and sister Courtney in all of their endeavors. In 2012, Erica Enders became the first woman to win a Pro Stock race, and in 2014, became the first woman to win a championship in the class. But while she is proud of those accomplishments, in another way, thanks to her upbringing it also doesn't matter. The important part was that she achieved those milestones as a racer as opposed to being a woman to reach those lofty heights. 

"My sister and I grew up in a house where gender played no role, both of our parents were hands-on and present," Enders says. "I always joke and say we lived in a snow globe, we believed that we could do anything. That we were the smartest, prettiest, best, that was just how we were brought up.

"When you come into this world it's very different. And I joke again and say they drop-kicked my snow globe and busted it everywhere. So it's a different environment and people aren't [always] positive or kind, so it was kind of a big blow to what I thought the world was like. But I feel like my dad and mom [Janet Lee] did a really good job of teaching us that anything was possible through hard work, believing in yourself, and surrounding yourself with the right people."

For the majority of her career, Enders has also been part of the Chevrolet and Team Chevy family. When she first began testing in Pro Stock, the Chevy Cavalier was the brand's entry in the class, before moving to the Cobalt and eventually the Camaro.

"GM was supportive of me from day one," she says.

Today, nearly all of the cars in the class are Chevrolet Camaros, with Enders pointing to the blocks and heads, bodies, R&D and wind tunnel time provided by the Bowtie as important factors in the team's accomplishments.

"All of that stuff plays a huge role in our success and they're the only brand that has factory support out here," Enders says. "It's super meaningful to all of us."

Enders is a longtime Chevrolet fan herself; she and her dad are currently building a 1957 Nomad wagon with the goal to make it the caliber of the vehicles that win the Detroit Autorama's prestigious Ridler award.

"It's pretty gangster," Enders says.

When she was in high school they also had a sleeper-style '67 Chevelle powered by a 468 cubic-inch engine, and later owned a 1969 Camaro from famed designer Boyd Coddington.

Meanwhile, in her Pro Stock Camaro, Enders is facing stiff competition as the class undergoes a resurgence. After the financial downturn in the late 2000s and rule changes in the mid-2010s, fields began to dwindle as the economics of the sport changed. For several seasons, many of the drivers were older business owners, with Enders one of the few competitors under the age of 40.

However, her Elite Motorsports team, along with heated rival KB Racing, worked with NHRA to field multiple entries and create a full field at each event. Now, as the class reinvents itself both in affordability and image, just qualifying for each race is not guaranteed, and Enders finds herself competing against many drivers who are around the same age as she was when she first burst onto the scene. 

"I feel like we've turned it around and I'm really proud of the small role that we've played in that," she says."The landscape has changed and now it's a bunch of young kids. I feel like we've shown everybody that the water's fine, come on in, it's not something that's unattainable."

Within Pro Stock, fierce team and personal rivalries are part of the class – led by multiple battles between Elite and KB with neither sugar-coating their intense desire to beat the other. And to do so badly. Enders says rivalries in drag racing are essential, just as they are in other motorsports and stick-and-ball sports.

"People love that controversy, the top-end arguments and the heated moments," she says. "The rivalries are great, but when you put that aside the respect is obviously there and we all work together behind the scenes to make this class what it is."