Shawn \u201cMurder Nova\u201d Ellington wrapped up an impressive 2024 season with both a win and a points championship at the No Prep Elite season 7 finale at the Texas Motorplex. Surrounded by friends and family in the winner\u2019s circle, he celebrated with a $120,000 payday, two trophies, and a brand-new Anvil trailer.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still not real to me,\u201d said Ellington. \u201cIt\u2019s still all a dream right now. At some point tomorrow it will hit me. When I lay down in bed tonight and won\u2019t be able to sleep, that\u2019s when it will hit me that it all came together. It makes everything worthwhile \u2013 all the struggles, all the headaches, beating our heads against the wall \u2013 it makes everything worth it.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ellington finished the regular season of No Prep Kings as the points leader, but after a couple early losses in the No Prep Elite playoffs, he entered Texas third in the standings, 30 points behind leader Robin Roberts. He knew things had to break his way to win the championship, and that\u2019s exactly what happened.<\/p>\n
Ellington and Jeff Lutz were the first pair down the track in round one, with Ellington scoring the victory. He then watched from the return road as Roberts went red against Chris Rankin in the very next race. The door had suddenly swung wide open.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that point, my wife and the push car are not even to me yet,\u201d Ellington said. \u201cThe producer says, \u2018Robin just lost.\u2019 I\u2019ll be honest, I felt like an asshole, but I was extremely excited. As they\u2019re coming down, I\u2019m waving my arms in the air saying, \u2018Robin lost! Robin lost!\u2019 There was a number of things that needed to happen today, and it\u2019s like they all just fell in place.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t just Ellington that benefited from the red light, however. Seven drivers entered the season finale with a realistic shot at the championship. But in addition to Roberts, Justin Swanstrom and Ryan Martin both fell in round one. Clay Cole and Scott Taylor then lost in round two, leaving only Jim Howe standing in Ellington\u2019s way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As luck would have it, the two drew each other in the semifinals. Unfortunately, Howe blew the motor in his quarterfinal-round win, and was not able to make it back in time, giving Ellington a bye run and the championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJim is always a tough draw, no matter when you get him,\u201d said Ellington. \u201cAny time you race him, he\u2019s got a chance to put bus lengths on people. We went up there loaded for bear, and he didn\u2019t make the call. I don\u2019t know if we would\u2019ve outran him, but at that point, I told him, \u2018Hey man\u2026I love you dude, but I\u2019m making the pass. I\u2019m not waiting on nobody.\u2019 There\u2019s too much money and too much hard work involved by my crew to do that. We all have the same opportunity to keep our cars together.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the $100,000 championship secured, there was only one item left on the agenda \u2013 win the event. Ellington would face Paige Coughlin, appearing in her first-ever Invitational final round. The race was over right at the tree, as Coughlin red lit to give Ellington the victory and another $20,000. It was his fourth Invitational win of the season, becoming only the second driver \u2013 along with Ryan Martin \u2013 to win four events in a single season.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything is about being consistent,\u201d Ellington said. \u201cI do believe a few times we had the fastest car on the property. But I also believe sometimes we were just the most consistent car on the property. That was the biggest key to our victories all year. We talked about it at the beginning of the year, and we said we wanted to finish off the season with a championship and a win in Ennis. And we made it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on October 27, 2024. <\/p>\n
The post Shawn \u2018Murder Nova\u2019 Ellington Crowned No Prep Elite Season 7 Champion<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Shawn \u201cMurder Nova\u201d Ellington wrapped up an impressive 2024 season with both a win and a points championship at the No Prep Elite season 7 finale at the Texas Motorplex. Surrounded by friends and family in the winner\u2019s circle, he celebrated with a $120,000 payday, two trophies, and a brand-new Anvil trailer.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s still not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}