Elite Motorsports announced today that it is returning to its roots with the expansion of its drag racing operation through the acquisition of J.R. Carr’s Mountain Motor Pro Stock program. Mountain Motor Pro Stock machines come in at over 820 cubic inches and can put out close to 2,000 horsepower. This acquisition adds two new vehicles to the Elite fleet. Five-time NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series Pro Stock titleist Erica Enders will pilot one of these powerful machines while Richard Freeman will drive the other.
Renowned tuner Frank Gugliotta will join the Elite Performance team to manage the Mountain Motor Program. This is not the first time he’s partnered with Freeman, the owner of Elite Motorsports and its subsidiaries including Elite Performance, the engine-building branch of the organization. Carr will remain involved in the operation as it evolves.
“In 2008, I got my first go at running Pro Stock in IHRA,” said Freeman. “It was J.R. Carr, Frank Gugliotta and myself. J.R. and I drove and Frank tuned both machines. J.R. and Frank did well. When I switched gears to 500-inch racing, they continued the Mountain Motor deal. They’ve always remained great friends and we’ve done a lot of business together over the years.”
Gugliotta will run the operation out of his home base in Maryland while working closely with the Elite Performance team in Oklahoma. Freeman also purchased Carr’s Ford program which will move to the Elite headquarters.
“We’re going to work on that Ford program and see if we can make something out of it,” said Freeman. It was pretty good back when J.R. was running it. We have a strong belief that it could be something great with the team of people we have in place. With this acquisition, we’ve got door car racing covered. Whether it’s our 500-inch program which is arguably one of the best in the country. We’ve got our Pro Mod program through our alliance with Justin Elkes at Modern Racing. And now we’ve got our 800-inch program as well. I’ve always had a love for the big motor stuff and was waiting for the time to be right. This is the right time.”
Freeman is especially looking forward to helping the Mountain Motor Pro Stock category grow in the NHRA.
“We’re going to try to focus a lot of our efforts on the NHRA side of things,” said Freeman. “I want to work with NHRA to try to grow that category. One of the reasons that I quit the Mountain Motor deal years ago is that they went from a quarter-mile to an eighth-mile. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I just didn’t really have an interest. When you spend all that money you want to plug it in high gear and go 225.”
Freeman and Enders will debut their Mountain Motor Pro Stock rides at Drag Illustrated’s World Series Of Pro Mod event at Bradenton Motorsports Park in Bradenton, Fla. March 3-5, 2023.
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