Thanks to the racing community and an all-day Saturday marathon of repairs, Nick Ellenberger went from a flip on Friday to his first feature win within the span of roughly 24 hours.
On Friday, he didn’t get past lap 1, turn one, of his heat race when calamity struck at Deuce of Clubs Thunder Raceway.
“A car in front of me got pointed toward the wall,” Nick, of Peoria, Arizona, said. “In a split second I did a 180 on top of him. My car landed backwards and I went end over end four times.”
Nick walked away from the crash without injury. He sat in an Ultra Shield full-containment seat with Impact belts. Nick wore an Impact helmet and a HANS device.
His micro from PMP Chassis didn’t fare as well. The crash heavily damaged the front end, rear end, nerf bars and shocks. Nick’s crew consists of just his wife, Nikki, and father, Billy.
“My dad was bummed out on Saturday morning, thinking it was over,” Nick said. “I woke up ready to go, and I first reached out on social media. I was surprised how many of my fellow racers and their families responded — offering parts and help. Then I headed to the pits and got to work.”
The long list of helpers included the Wright family and Kelly family, among many others. Eric Kelly Jr. worked nonstop for 6 hours alongside Nick to reassemble his micro sprint. They finished 45 minutes before the show began on Saturday. When Nick first hit the track, he had an inkling he might have a better night.
“The car was fast, real fast,” Nick said. “The bugs were worked of it. I started outside pole, got shuffled back five spots, and then started picking off the cars in front of me one by one. That’s when I told myself I may have a chance to win.”
As the checkered flag waved, Ellenberger crossed the finish line first, but then a red flag quickly came out for a flip on the backstretch. Since the second-place racer, Nixx Eggleston, didn’t cross the line before they called the red flag, officials decided to do a green-white-checkered finish.
“I couldn’t believe it that I was going to have to pull this off again,” Nick said. “I dove in too deep on the first lap — I was worried Nixx would bomb me. Then I washed up coming out of two and he got me in turn three.”
On the next lap, Eggleston got loose in turn three and Ellenberger took the inside.
“I drag raced Nixx to the finish line,” Nick said. “I didn’t know I had won. They later said it was by .068 of a second. When it came over the speaker that ‘2E is the winner,’ I just screamed and screamed.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
