NHRA event in Pro Stock to winning the Pro Mod race, I don’ t think I’ ve ever received that kind of acknowledgement from my peers. Near everybody that talked to me told me congratulations and how they were proud of me.”
To find out how Stanfield ended up here, we have to go back to last winter when Stanfield’ s Elite Motorsports teammate, six-time NHRA Pro Stock world champion Erica Enders, drove a ProCharged’ 69 Camaro in the inaugural Drag Illustrated Winter Series presented by J & A Service through a partnership between Elite and Scott Tidwell Racing. Stanfield watched Enders on the FloRacing live stream throughout the Winter Series. Between seeing how much fun Enders and team owner Richard Freeman were having and noticing the competition level, Stanfield realized he wanted in on the action.
“ It just sparked it in me,” Stanfield recalls.“ I was like,‘ I want to do that. It looks pretty dang fun.’ One thing led to another. With the help of Pat Quinn and Richard and the Tidwell camp, everything came together and it gave me an opportunity to do it.”
Freeman worked with Modern Racing to put together a pair of screw-blown, late-model Camaros for Stanfield and Enders to drive in the three-race 2025 / 2026 DI Winter Series, which began at the Snowbird Outlaw Nationals presented by Motion Raceworks in early December and continued at the U. S. Street Nationals presented by M & M Transmission in late January.
Both drivers found themselves outside the 32-car field at the Snowbirds as the team dialed in the new setups. The Elite team stepped up at the U. S. Street Nationals, where Enders qualified No. 31 with a 3.595-second pass and Stanfield qualified No. 37 with a 3.598. Just three thousandths separated them, but it was enough to keep Stanfield out of the first-ever all-3.50- second 32-car field in Pro Mod history. Still, Stanfield saw it as another learning experience and vowed to come back stronger at the Winter Series finale.
“ I’ m probably a lighter driver than what’ s been in some of those cars, and they wheelie for a couple hundred feet, so it’ s difficult to get them to go straight enough to get it down the racetrack when the front end’ s up in the air,” Stanfield says.“ I think that was a learning curve. But I felt like we made respectable runs at those first two races with the screw blower car and just barely missed the field. Obviously, there’ s a lot of really good race cars out there. It was a good experience to
IN THE SECOND-QUICKEST FINAL ROUND IN WSOPM HISTORY, STANFIELD DEFEATED NEWLY CROWNED DIWS PRO MOD CHAMPION AND ROOKIE OF THE YEAR PETER NORTON. BOTH DRIVERS WERE NEW TO PRO MOD GOING INTO THE WINTER.
88 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated. com Issue 200