Simply mentioning Richard Freeman’s name triggers a wide array of responses from those who know him best – rough around the edges, a teddy bear, aggressive, loud, fearless leader.
No description is inherently wrong. The Oklahoma native embodies all of these qualities — and more — in his daily life as a Pro Stock team owner and well-established businessman.
Erica Enders, who has driven for Freeman and his Elite Motorsports team since 2014, chuckled while deliberating how to describe her relationship with Freeman.
“Bonnie and Clyde?” she quipped.
The dynasty she’s built hand-in-hand with Freeman over the last decade speaks for itself. Since joining the Elite Motorsports camp, the pairing has collected six Pro Stock titles and more than 40 national event wins.
While it’s difficult to imagine Enders without the credentials that are now synonymous with her name, the vast majority of her success didn’t come until Freeman hired her.
Prior to the swap in 2014, Enders had run for four teams — Victor Cagnazzi Racing, Don Schumacher Racing, her family-owned operation and Cunningham Motorsports.
There were some good times scattered throughout those early days, but frankly, nothing could compare to the environment she found with Elite.
What made the difference?
“(Just) having the people in the right places and actually feeling like they have my back and not feeling like I was going to have my seat snaked from me by somebody that was working for me, which happened (before),” Enders said, referring to her first departure from Cagnazzi Racing in 2006.
Up to that point, the Texas native wasn’t all that close with Freeman, though she knew of him.
As the two individuals were from the same region (Oklahoma, Texas), they raced in the same Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series divisions and other sportsman ranks. Enders’ former husband, Richie Stevens Jr., also drove for Freeman in Pro Stock.
She was more than familiar with Freeman’s abrasive exterior, frequent cussing and lack of a filter before she made the move from Cagnazzi to Elite in 2014.
“Those are the things you have to look past to get to the real Richard,” Enders said. “He is a man of his word. He does what he says. He pays his bills. He’s a caretaker of all — his mom and brothers and nephews all work for him.”
The 31,000-square-foot Elite Motorsports facility in Wynnewood, Okla., is located next to Freeman’s mom’s house, his personal residence is a little further down and so is his brother’s.
Enders affectionately calls the road “Freeman Alley.”
“He didn’t come from a lot, he made his way and he has a really cool story,” Enders noted.
Freeman’s story starts the same way most drag racing stories begin — with a father who was obsessed with racing. Freeman’s late father, Royce Freeman, competed in Pro Stock during the 1970s.
The truth is, most of his dad’s racing occurred before Richard Freeman can remember, so he doesn’t cite that as the reason he originally entered straight-line competition.
That experience came later, when Freeman was in his junior year of high school.
On a whim, he decided to enter a Division 4 bracket race in Ardmore, Okla. Upon showing up, Freeman discovered no one else had entered, so it also ended up being his first victory.
“I learned real quick that it was something that I wanted to do,” Freeman said. “I also learned real quick that it’s awful expensive.”
Freeman and his older brothers — Robert and Royce — spent their high school years racing while their parents focused on running the family’s collection of car dealerships.
Trouble hit during Freeman’s freshman year of college, when the family businesses went bust. He promptly returned home and began the slow, laborious process of building everything from scratch.
“When people say, ‘Oh, we were just rich. I had it all handed to me.’ They are the most ignorant (expletive) on the planet. They have no idea the struggles that I went through. Not just myself, but my family, my child,” Freeman said.
He explained how he and Enders often talk about the moments they’ve missed due to their unwavering commitment to racing. For Freeman, it’s often difficult to reconcile his absence from his daughter’s cheer practice, basketball games and birthday parties.
“I’ve missed everything under the sun,” Freeman said. “There was so much sacrifice, lots of tears, lots of financial woes and that still goes on today.”
But Freeman just sees it as part of the racing deal.
Before becoming a Pro Stock team owner, the ornery Oklahoman was told time and time again, “You don’t want to be no part of this … you need to stay where you’re at.”
As one might imagine, Freeman didn’t listen.
After spending a few years racing in the IHRA Mountain Motor Pro Stock ranks, he decided to end his driving career and fully embrace the business side of the sport. That was the first domino that fell and allowed Freeman to begin carving out his NHRA legacy.
“That started with Rickie Jones. He drove my car, I got out (of the seat) and we leased motors to the Grays. There’s a lot of (building) blocks,” Freeman recalled.
In 2013, veteran Funny Car racer Johnny Gray partnered with Freeman to field his son, Shane Gray, in Pro Stock. Shane Gray finished fifth in the championship after making five final-round appearances.
Meanwhile, Jones came away with one Wally and an 11th-place points finish.
Then came Enders.
“She was the final straw that broke the camel’s back,” Freeman said. “I took Rickie Jones out of the seat and took a little bit of heat for that.”
Jones became crew chief and Enders hopped into the cockpit.
Of course, it wasn’t quite as happy and simple as that. Enders won her fourth race out, but a string of holeshot losses eventually culminated with a “come to Jesus” meeting in Chicago, Ill., midway through the 2014 season.
“I don’t do finger-pointing,” Freeman said, just as fierce about it now as that June day in Illinois. “We had a meeting, there were some of those tears (from Enders) and that right there changed the trajectory of our program from that to where it is today.
“Magic started,” Freeman continued. “You gotta think about it, it was a pretty short time from 2014 to right now. We’ve won 40 (races), and I’m talking just about Erica.”
Enders and Freeman won their first championship together in 2014, launching an unrivaled era of dominance in the factory hot rod class.
More so, that world title began the rewarding process of proving “the haters” wrong — something Freeman and Enders have a knack for.
“We kicked their ass up one side and down the other, just a bunch of rednecks from Oklahoma,” Freeman said with a chuckle, leaning back in his office chair as he reminisced.
Freeman’s legacy extends back to that final trip home from college that forced Freeman to dig his heels in deep and fight for his family. It grew when Frank Gugliotta and J.R. Carr started driving for him in the late 2000s. It now continues with all the other businesses that fall under the Elite umbrella — and there’s quite a few of them.
Elite HP (Parts, Cars, Engines), Elite Performance, Patterson Elite and Elite Cultivation and Processing make up the pillars of Elite Motorsports LLC.
In 2022, Scott Woodruff was hired as the branding and motorsports director for Elite to oversee the expansive operation.
“I helped build the motorsports program at JEGS in the late ’90s and you know, the Coughlins always raced as a family,” Woodruff said. “This is as close to that feeling of family that I get. We all give each other a hard time — and I mean, a real hard time — but we all have respect for what each other does.”
He’s known Freeman much longer than he’s worked for him, long enough to have an opinion on what has generally contributed to Freeman’s success.
“The one thing Richard has done a very good job of is putting people in the right places and trusting them and letting them do their job. He’s not a micromanager. He’s not scared to ask questions and he wants to understand, but he knows when something’s over his head and when it’s not,” Woodruff said.
Rather than attempt to do everything in-house, Freeman has chosen to rely on the folks who have built their careers and reputations around the services he needs.
“The people that do their job well, that’s who I do business with. Carl Foltz (CFE). Yes, he does my cylinder heads. Yes, he does my manifolds. But guess what? He does it every day. And he is a genius,” Freeman said.
Woodruff, who is a member on the Professional Racers Organization board, has also been a firsthand witness of Freeman’s influence on drag racing.
After NHRA cut the Pro Stock schedule in 2019 due to dwindling car counts, Freeman instigated a conversation between Elite and KB Titan Racing in an attempt to lower the cost of entry for Pro Stock.
Five years later, the class is as healthy as ever and back to a full schedule. There were 23 Pro Stock entries at the season-opening Gatornationals at Gainesville (Fla.) Raceway.
“Without a doubt, Pro Stock would not be where it is today without Richard Freeman. I believe that wholeheartedly,” Enders said adamantly. “(Most people) race with blinders on. They only care about what it right here and not the greater good of the class. Without someone like Richard who is passionate about it and loves Pro Stock and doesn’t want to see it go anywhere, without him leading that effort, it would’ve failed.”
Freeman was also a driving force behind the recent PRO Superstar Shootout at Florida’s Bradenton Motorsports Park, which put forth an incredible $1.3 million event purse, one of the most lucrative in drag racing history.
“He (Freeman) is very determined to make sure that he’s being a good steward of the sport and trying to make sure that some other punk kid from Oklahoma who thinks he could never make a life out of racing gets to do something cool like this,” Woodruff concluded.