{"id":644910,"date":"2026-05-03T10:44:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T10:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/644910\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T10:44:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T10:44:18","slug":"mark-melling-left-nascar-and-found-a-home-in-the-nhra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/644910\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Melling Left NASCAR and Found a Home in the NHRA"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the motorsport\u2019s community, whether it be NASCAR or NHRA, the last name \u201cMelling\u201d is synonymous with winning and championships.<\/p>\n

Today, you\u2019ll find Melling Performance and the company\u2019s familiar red on the Chevrolet Camaro driven by six-time NHRA Pro Stock champion Erica Enders. Products produced by the Jackson, Michigan-based company, can also be found throughout the NHRA paddock.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Pro Stock area is the right size (for us),\u201d Mark Melling, CEO of Melling Engine Parts, said. \u201cWe can be a lot more effective with our money here than we could in some of the other forms of racing. Most of what we sell probably is (for) hot rodders and high-performance guys. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe high-end racing is cool, but our business is not really that. Our customer base definitely is tuned in here. They like engines. They like speed. The NHRA is a little more targeted to \u2026 gearheads that have something in their garage that\u2019s jacked up and being worked on.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the NHRA, however, that drew the Melling company to racing. Instead, it was NASCAR. Melling became a household name with NASCAR fans in the 1980s after Mark\u2019s father, Harry Melling, purchased George Elliott\u2019s struggling Cup team. Brothers Bill, Ernie and Dan Elliott quickly catapulted to stardom, acquiring 34 victories and a Cup championship in a nine-year period. However, after Bill Elliott left the team at the end of 1991 to drive for Junior Johnson, the organization struggled. It never again visited a NASCAR Cup victory lane before Harry Melling suffered a fatal heart attack in mid-1999.<\/p>\n

\"billRacingOne\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Melling became a household name with NASCAR fans in the 1980s after Mark\u2019s father, Harry Melling, purchased George Elliott\u2019s struggling Cup team.<\/p>\n

With the death of the Melling family patriarch, Mark became a NASCAR team owner and the CEO of Melling Engine Parts, also referred to as Melling Tool Company or Melling Industries. At one point Chad Knaus, now Hendrick Motorsports vice president of competition, was the team\u2019s crew chief but the organization\u2019s success of more than a decade couldn\u2019t be resurrected. At the end of the 2002 season, Mark made the tough decision to close the NASCAR operation. The North Carolina shop and equipment were sold to Arnold Motorsports in 2003.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really depressed,\u201d admitted Mark, who was in his early 30s at the time. \u201cCircumstances just didn\u2019t happen the way you wanted. 9\/11 kind of flushed a few of us out.\u201d <\/p>\n

Now, however, in retrospect, Mark is convinced there was a reason behind shutting down the team. No longer having the race team provided him with the time to focus on his family. He coached hockey and attended dance recitals. <\/p>\n

\u201cI got to do all these things for these kids for the next 10, 15 years. It was a blessing,\u201d Mark said.<\/p>\n

Even though Mark realized the turn his life took when he closed the NASCAR team was a better path, he was still bitter about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was tough. It took a lot out of us,\u201d Mark continued. <\/p>\n

Then, about a decade ago one of Mark\u2019s friends encouraged him to check out a drag race. Mark agreed and as soon as he entered the facility, he began seeing several of his customers.<\/p>\n

\"markMike Pryson<\/p>\n

Mark Melling and Erica Enders at Melling Performance\u2019s headquarters in Michigan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started looking at people and it felt like I had gone back. It had so much of a flare of when I was 10 to 12 years old,\u201d Mark said about the NHRA event. \u201cThe 15-year-old in the early \u201880s, I felt a lot like that here (NHRA). It wasn\u2019t this huge production. The people were all very nice. They were thrilled to have me there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark soon met with Elite Motorsports owner Richard Freeman and there was an instant connection. His previous experience as a team owner allowed him to understand Freeman\u2019s challenges. Freeman wanted Mark to be a part of the team, someone he could bounce ideas off. That made Mark feel like a part of the family; not just someone who wrote a check and put a name on a car.<\/p>\n

Initially, it was just a trunk deck for half a season. Then the racing flood gate opened. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like the alcoholic stayed away from the bar for a long time, and then he\u2019s back,\u201d Mark said in describing his return to racing. \u201cBut we keep it in moderation, so it\u2019s all good right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark described Enders as a \u201cperfect representative.\u201d Four of her six championships have come with the Melling banner, and that, too, has brought pleasant childhood memories back to Mark.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was a kid, I got to go to the Waldorf-Astoria with my dad,\u201d Mark said, reminiscing about the 1988 NASCAR Cup awards banquet when Bill Elliott was the champion. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we won our first championship with Erica, they were going to the IMAX Theater in Hollywood (for) the championship dinner. We did the red carpet there \u2026 and I thought how lucky and blessed have I been to be able to do that with my dad on one side, then go over to the NHRA, and be able to participate in the championship dinner as part of the championship team and have my kids on the red carpet with me in their dresses and their tuxedos. I\u2019ve been very, very lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lettermark\"<\/p>\n

A North Carolina native, Deb Williams is an award-winning motorsports journalist who is in her fourth decade covering auto racing. In addition to covering the sport for United Press International, she has written motorsports articles for several newspapers, magazines and websites including espnW.com<\/a>, USA Today, and The Charlotte Observer. Her awards include the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence, two-time National Motorsports Press Association writer of the year, and two-time recipient of the Russ Catlin award. She also has won an award in the North Carolina Press Association\u2019s sports feature category.\u00a0 During her career, Deb has been managing editor of GT Motorsports magazine and was with Winston Cup Scene and NASCAR Winston Cup Scene for 18 years, serving as the publication\u2019s editor for 10 years. In 2024 she was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the motorsport\u2019s community, whether it be NASCAR or NHRA, the last name \u201cMelling\u201d is synonymous with winning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,240148,634,77461,82],"class_list":["post-644910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mark-melling","tag-nascar","tag-nhra","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}