RICHARD FREEMAN

For Freeman, it started with buying Tom Hammonds’ engine shop and after seeing there was potential for success in the class, he moved the team from Charlotte to Oklahoma after purchasing Jeg Coughlin’ s engine shop at the end of 2012. That same group remains intact today and represents a major reason why Elite Motorsports is a force in the sport. Erica Enders started with the team in 2014, with the initial plan to attend 15 races. But as things came together perhaps quicker than expected, that turned to 22 races – six of which Enders won – and her first world championship. Enders won nine races a year later in 2015, putting together a dominant season en route to her second world title and firmly putting Freeman and Elite Motorsports on the map as a top-tier team.

With a stable that now includes Enders, Coughlin, Vincent Nobile and Alex Laughlin, who is current racing Pro Stock on a part-time basis, Freeman has formed a venerable organization. In one respect, he’ s living the dream.

But even with that success, the class itself is in the midst of what can, even at its most optimistic, be described as a transitional period. The move to EFI has been a bumpy one, with low car counts and seemingly dwindling fan interest in the class coming to the forefront. For many, though, it has only further brought to light the issues that have been facing the Pro Stock class for quite some time.

Opinions on what went wrong, what needs changed and what are the solutions vary wildly, but Freeman is of the firm belief the class can be saved. Perhaps it’ s being too positive, but Freeman

gives off the impression that Pro Stock can thrive again one day.

In a wide-ranging interview with Drag Illustrated, Freeman touched on a variety of those topics related to the class, including most predominantly what he thinks can be done to get Pro Stock back trending in the right direction. Freeman also discussed the possibility of an 18- race Pro Stock schedule in 2018, the chance of Elite going Pro Mod racing, including when that could happen and who would be driving, and why a positive outlook leads him to believe things might not be as bad as some people believe in Pro Stock.

Pro Stock has been a longtime passion for you. With that said, why is it important for you that Pro Stock stays relevant?

First of all, Pro Stock was born from the early days of Super Stock and Factory Modified. My father did it all the way up until 1980. Pro Stock has been a passion of mine since I was a kid and never in a million years did I think I would have the opportunity to do it at the level that I am right now. I’ m thankful for that and, you know, Pro Stock is important to us. Yes, Pro Stock is part of our business, but we made it that way, and if Pro Stock were to go away we would fall in somewhere else that we like in the door car ranks, whether that may be Pro Modified or whatever. But at the end of the day, I don’ t think NHRA or the competitors in Pro Stock, none of us want to see Pro Stock go by the wayside, and at the end of the day, we don’ t think it will.

The persona of Pro Stock has changed over the period of years because the class of people who run it are very, very good. You got people like KB( Racing, which includes world champs Greg Anderson and Jason Line, as well current points leader Bo Butner), my team, the Gray’ s( Motorsports) team,( Chris) McGaha, who all do a fantastic job at what they do. It’ s changed the landscape over a period of years. I like to always use KB as the example because they’ ve done it the longest, and they really stepped the game up when they started their own in-house program and they just took

BOLD SPEAKER Pro Stock team owner Richard Freeman isn’ t shy when it comes to voicing his feelings about what can be done to get the Pro Stock class back trending in the right direction.

it to a new level. They’ re very good competitors and so I think as much as it’ s NHRA’ s job, it’ s the team’ s job to make it available to people that may want to try it. While there’ s a cost that comes with it, there is with any form of racing. It doesn’ t matter what you do. My opinion is, one of the reasons you see so many cars in Pro Modified is the perception is you can get what the other competitors have, and that makes a huge difference.

What Mr.( Jon) Asher said that Pro Stock needs to be the Factory Shootout, that is probably one of the most ignorant statements I’ ve ever heard, in the sense that Factory Shootout stuff is only going to be around as long as the factories want

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