Up until Sunday, this year’s Western Swing has been a bust for two-time Pro Stock series champion Erica Enders. However, she pulled into Seattle rested and ready after a Wine Country tour in Northern California and a rafting trip on the McKenzie River in Oregon and some sightseeing at Seattle’s iconic Pike Place Market before qualifying started at Pacific Raceways. That R&R worked its magic, as she rebounded with a No. 4 spot in the Northwest Nationals order.

“Mark and Marshall Stockseth, the husband and wife who sponsor us and Matt and Angie [Smith in the ProStock Motorcycle class], they invited me to the Wine Country to go wine tasting with them. And in the 14 years I’ve raced in Sonoma, I’ve never taken the time to do that. So it was a first-time treat for me,” she said.

They toured the Opus One, Jordan, and Far Niente wineries.

“One of the head guys is really good friends with Rip Reynolds, the co-crew chief on Tommy’s [Johnson’s] car. So it was neat. We had a really good time. I enjoyed that.”

She also said the rafting trip was fun.

“I had never been. It was cool. It wasn’t as scary or intense as I thought it was going to be. We probably didn’t raft the craziest river, by any means. We flew into Eugene on Richard’s plane, and then we drove about 45 minutes up the mountain.  He rented a house up there, and we just had a good time. It was nice.”

KB-Summit Racing star Bo Butner – the man who had made her on-track results miserable by eliminating her at both Denver and Sonoma – joined the group, along with his fiancée, racer Randi Lyn Shipp. Enders resisted the urge to shove Butner overboard.

“Richard organized that whole trip and took all of us. It was fun to just have a day and not really talk about race cars, just relax and have fun. We had two boats, because I think there’s like 15 or 16 people, so we had two rafts. I fortunately was on the calmer of the two because the other guys, like Alex Laughlin was there too, he was on that raft with like most of my crew guys,” she said.

“Me, Randi Lyn, Bo, Richard, Jake my engine guy, and Robert my clutch guy were on our raft, so it was much more calm. And none of us fell off,” she said. “But everybody on the other raft either got pushed in or fell off. And the water was like 37 below. It was so cold, like take your breath away. It’s really fast moving. You can get in trouble pretty quick. We wore life jackets the whole time, obviously. “I’m not much for cold water. I don’t like to be cold or wet.”

In downtown Seattle, they killed some time and had some lunch at Pike Place Market, a city landmark. “They had these amazing fresh flowers – huge bouquets for $10 and $20. I wanted some so bad,” Enders said. “I said, ‘I could put them in my lounge.’

"You need these times to get business and racing off your mind, even if it's just for a day, and focus on the family side of this crazy sport. It was another great team-building experience, something we were blessed to do together. All-in-all, a really cool experience," she said.