Chevrolet Nova – MURDER NOVA @ LIGHTS OUT 7

Shawn Ellington’s Murder Nova, a 1969 Chevy built around a Proline Racing big-block, is one of the most recognized cars in grassroots drag racing. At Lights Out 7, one of small-tire racing’s biggest proving grounds, the Nova pushed all the way to the semifinal round, silencing anyone who doubted a TV personality’s car could actually run with dedicated racers. Read on for how a kid from Sayre, Oklahoma built a name that still means something at the track.

A name like “Murder Nova” isn’t the kind of thing a car earns by accident, and the man behind the wheel built the reputation to match. Shawn Ellington’s Proline-built big-block Chevy has become one of the most recognized cars in grassroots drag racing, the kind of build that turned a body-shop kid from small-town Oklahoma into one of the sport’s most bankable names. Lights Out is not the kind of race that cares about television credentials, either – it is a radial-tire proving ground where reputations get erased in a single round. So what actually happened when he brought that car to Lights Out 7, and why does the story still get told years later?

The Man Behind the Name

Ellington was born in Merced, California in 1977 before his family relocated to Sayre, Oklahoma when he was five, and he built his reputation the same way most Street Outlaws OKC crew members did, racing on public roads long before television cameras ever showed up. The Murder Nova itself is a 1969 Chevy Nova carrying a big-block built by Proline Racing, a shop with a reputation for building some of the meanest naturally aspirated and turbocharged engines in grassroots drag racing.

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Proving Ground at Lights Out

Lights Out is one of the biggest proving grounds in small-tire drag racing, and Ellington’s run at Lights Out 7 saw the Murder Nova qualify eleventh in a stacked 32-car Outlaw 275 field and push through to the semifinal round of eliminations, falling only to eventual class winner Barry Mitchell, silencing doubters who questioned whether the car could hang with dedicated no-prep and radial-tire specialists built for exactly that kind of event. That semifinal appearance mattered because it proved the Murder Nova wasn’t just a television personality’s car, it was a genuinely fast machine capable of running with the best of the small-tire world, a reputation Ellington has kept building on at events ever since.

How a Home-Built Nova Outgrew the Pro Ranks

Cars like the Murder Nova have helped turn grassroots, small-tire drag racing into must-watch content for fans who grew up idolizing NHRA stars, proving a bracket-built Nova out of a home garage can carry just as much star power as anything running a professional touring series.

What Lights Out Actually Is

For anyone outside the radial-tire world, Lights Out is an annual event held at South Georgia Motorsports Park, promoted by Duck X Productions, and it has become the unofficial world championship of small-tire racing. The headline class, Radial vs. the World, pits the fastest drag radial cars on the planet against each other in a format where the car counts are huge, qualifying is brutal, and the weather in the Georgia winter can turn a fast track into a nightmare overnight. Making the later rounds there is a credential racers carry with them for the rest of their careers.

Twin 88s and the Big-Block Philosophy

The Murder Nova’s engine package is a study in brute force: a Proline big-block Chevy fed by a pair of 88mm turbochargers. Big-inch turbo combinations dominate radial racing because displacement builds boost quickly and the turbos deliver a wide, tunable powerband, which matters when a driver has to leave the line on a surface that changes from round to round. Twin 88s are large enough to feed enormous horsepower at the top end while still spooling fast enough to launch, and managing that balance through the tune is where races are won or lost.

The Street Outlaws Effect

Street Outlaws premiered on Discovery in 2013 and turned the Oklahoma City street-racing scene, Ellington included, into household names. The show’s format, a ranked list of the fastest cars in the city settled by head-to-head races, gave viewers a reason to care about specific cars and drivers in a way that professional drag racing had struggled to do. The Murder Nova became one of the show’s signature machines, and that visibility is exactly why doubters at sanctioned events were so eager to see whether the car was as fast as the cameras suggested.

Why a 1969 Nova in the First Place

The choice of a 1969 Nova was practical before it was iconic. Third-generation Novas were plentiful and cheap when Ellington started, the unibody is light and compact, and the engine bay accepts a big-block with far less surgery than most cars of the era. The car’s boxy, unassuming shape also made it a natural street car – nothing about a Nova screams for attention until it leaves the line – and the same qualities that made it a good street racer made it a good starting point for a serious radial-tire build.

Radials Changed the Whole Game

Radial-tire racing exploded over the last decade because it lets cars that look like street cars run numbers that once required full-blown Pro Mod machinery. Drag radials hook differently from slicks, demanding softer launches and more careful power management, which is why turbocharged cars with sophisticated boost control took over the class. The Murder Nova’s success at Lights Out 7 was, in part, proof that a car developed on the street and on no-prep surfaces could adapt to the very different demands of a prepped radial track.

From the Street to Sanctioned Events

The move from street racing to sanctioned events changed the whole scene. No-prep races and radial events like Lights Out gave street-bred cars a place to compete legally, on timed tracks, with safety equipment and real purses on the line. For Ellington and the OKC crew, that meant proving themselves against racers who had spent years developing purpose-built radial cars. The Nova’s semifinal run was as much a validation of the street-racing community as it was of one car.

A Car That Keeps Evolving

The Murder Nova has never been a finished product. Over the years the car has gone through multiple iterations of engine, turbo, and chassis setups, with each version chasing more power and more consistency, and the name – a nod to the car’s all-black, murdered-out look – has stayed constant even as almost everything underneath changed. That willingness to keep tearing the car down and rebuilding it is what has kept it competitive across an era when radial racing has gotten faster every single season.

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