NHRA driver Erica Enders, the subject of a popular Disney Channel movie, talks to the media at a press conference on Wednesday. (Photo by Joe Huddleston)

HEBRON — Erica Enders, living out her childhood dream, has become the National Hot Road Association Pro Stock’s most successful female driver in the sport’s history, and is inspiring a whole new generation of auto racing fans – girls and boys alike — with her combination of passion and personality. Not a bad résumé for a 22-year-old college junior from Houston, Texas.

Enders will be one of the this weekend’s most visible and popular drivers at the 42nd annual Pontiac Performance Nationals at National Trail Raceway in Hebron. Of course, when your inspiring life story is scripted into a Disney Channel original movie, attention and intrigue are bound to follow you around. The highly-successful 2003 film “Right On Track” starred Beverley Mitchell of television’s “7th Heaven” fame and was based upon the lives of Erica and her sister, Courtney.

“My dad raced my entire life, so I grew up at the race track,” said Enders of her racing-in-her-blood beginnings. “Then, in 1992, NHRA came out with a junior racing league for ages 8-to-17 to drive in. I asked my dad if I could do it, and he said I could. I then got into Super Comp and Super Gas racing for five years and got my license in Top Alcohol Funny Cars. I thought I was going to go into Nitro Funny Car racing, but we ended up in Pro Stock, and I couldn’t be happier. I absolutely love it.”

One of the threads that makes Enders’ story so endearing is that she made her own personal decision to pursue racing excellence. The family support followed that choice, rather than it being dictated beforehand by any pressures of association or last-name expectations.

“The passion comes from my family and being around the sport every weekend,” Enders said. “It wasn’t something that my dad or my family asked me to do or had me do; it was something that I really wanted to do. I’ve been blessed enough to do it for 15 years and now we are in the ‘big leagues.’ It has been awesome.

“I’m young, but I am also four years into being the legal age-minimum for being a pro race driver. It has been perfect, and I couldn’t ask for a better way for it to turn out. I have been paired up with a great team that shares the same values that I do, and it has been worth the wait.”

In addition to the time spent on the track in her second season with the Professional Pro Stock circuit, Enders’ days are also filled with helping promote her sponsor, Slammers Ultimate Milk, as well as working toward a degree in Marketing at Texas A&M University.

“It’s really hard and is a challenge every day,” Enders said. “I took this last semester off and we have been working a lot with our new sponsor, Slammers. ... I have been very busy, but it has been very beneficial to our team and our success this year.”

And for Enders’ legion of new fans that “Right On Track” has guided her way?

“Don’t let anybody stand in your way,” said Enders. “It is a sport of great family and great sponsors. ... My advice is to dream big and to follow that dream.”

Appropriately, in the 2006 NHRA Media Guide’s biography section, Enders’ page of information falls alphabetically and immediately in front of the sport’s most recognizable and enduring champion: John Force. And although the two are in separate classes — Force is a 10-time Funny Car title winner — it serves as a symbolic representation of the sport’s gleaming past connecting with the it’s bright future.

A future that, for the NHRA and its growing fan base, seems to be ‘right on track’.