PRO STOCK

Erica Enders-Stevens faced Allen Johnson in the Pro Stock final, winning on a holeshot with a 6.594-second pass at 210.60 mph. Johnson, the 2012 Pro Stock world champion, ran a 6.588 at 210.28.

Johnson had a 12-7 career win record against Enders-Stevens and three round victories over her this year. Even though the 2012 Pro Stock champion ran the faster elapsed time, Enders-Stevens’ quicker reaction time (.018 to .044) enabled her to keep her slim lead the whole race.

“My team’s been really awesome,” said Enders-Stevens, driver of the Elite Motorsports Chevy Camaro. “I’ve had a really consistent race car. That’s what it takes Sundays, consistency. We had to make last second transmission change and go through the gears to make sure everything was right.”

The win was Enders-Stevens’ eighth career victory and her first in Houston. Enders-Stevens, the current Pro Stock points leader and the only female in Pro Stock history to lead the points, has enjoyed her quick start to the season but knows that she must keep it up to remain atop the Pro Stock class.

“The ball’s in our court,” Enders-Stevens said. “We’ve got to carry the momentum. That’s important in this game, and I know I keep saying that, but it’s huge, and we’re going to keep carrying it as long as we can. Pro Stock really goes in cycles, so I’m really hoping this is our cycle, and we’re going to keep fighting for it.”

Johnson was philosophical about the weekend.

“I think we’ve got a better handle on the Dart,” he said. “We have something really good to work with on both cars and we actually made some good progress today with Jeg (Coughlin Jr.) car. Jeg really made improvements today and had a chance to be in the finals with me. Between the tune up and the motors and this humidity and these new cars we made a lot of positive progress this weekend.“

Coughlin’s day started on a positive note as he disposed of opponents Greg Anderson and Dave Connolly with the help of strong reaction times to advance to his semi-final match up against Enders-Stevens where, for a second consecutive national event, the JEGS.com Mopar driver had a -.004 red-light foul ruin his bid for a final round appearance.

"I felt fantastic behind the wheel," Coughlin said. "I was .005 first round and .012 second round, and I was set up somewhere between .002 and .010 for that run and must've got it all again. Little bit unnecessary, quite frankly, to set up so tight but we'll make some adjustments. We've got two weeks off, so we'll be ready to go for Atlanta."

Coughlin’s semi-final appearance contributed to boosting the defending NHRA Pro Stock Champ from ninth to seventh in the standings.