[ Making a Mark ]
L
IZZY MUSI was met with mixed
reception when she jumped
into the no-prep scene in 2018.
Hardcore no-prep racers won-
dered if she’d catch on after a
handful of successful years in
PDRA Pro Nitrous competition.
Her father, legendary doorslammer rac-
er and engine builder Pat Musi, wasn’t
even a fan of his daughter going no-
prep racing at first.
But after Musi won three consecu-
tive races on the Street Outlaws: No
Prep Kings tour last season, nearly
everyone has come around to the idea
of Musi not only competing in no-prep,
but also running at the front.
“I actually had a lot of heat thrown at
me,” Musi says of her intro to no-prep
racing. “‘Oh, look at this Pro Mod racer
coming in here. She thinks she can run
over us. Who is she?’ But I kept my
head down and knew what to do. My
dad always told me, ‘Run your race car,
not your mouth,’ and that’s what I did.”
Musi’s sweep of the Epping, St. Louis
and Boise races helped her finish fourth
in the No Prep Kings championship points. The
success was due in part to Pat coming on board at
the Epping race to tune the “Aftershock” Camaro
previously campaigned by Lizzy’s boyfriend, Kye
Kelley. Pat stayed on for the rest of the season after
being thoroughly impressed by the whole scene.
Musi and “Aftershock” are set up for even more
success in 2020. Pat brought the nitrous-assisted,
Musi-powered Camaro in-house at Musi Rac-
ing in Mooresville, North Carolina, where it’s
undergone a series of upgrades. That includes a
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I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
trip to nearby Robert Hayes Motorsports, where
Hayes beefed up the chassis to improve the car’s
driveability, an issue that Musi worked around
as much as possible last season.
“It came out almost like a brand-new car,” says
Musi, the first woman to win a No Prep Kings
event. “When we went to go make the first hit in
testing at Orlando, I was a little nervous because
I’m used to that car doing whatever it wants to
do. First pass it went straight down, and it was
actually the fastest I’ve ever been in that car. That
was a really positive note to start off
with and we kept knocking away at it.
If we could win three races in a row last
year, I know we can win a lot more than
that this year.”
A major change for Musi this year
will be a reduction in the number of
PDRA races she’ll attend. Rather than
running the full schedule in Pro Ni-
trous like she has since 2014, Musi will
only attend the races that don’t overlap
with the No Prep Kings schedule. It’s a
move supported by her major sponsors,
Edelbrock and Lucas Oil, but Musi still
has mixed emotions about it.
“We love running that car,” Musi says.
“We love it, we have fun, and that’s
where I started. But this year, we’re
making a full commitment to the No
Prep Kings series. We’re doing that
because the purse you’re racing for is
huge. You’re racing for $40,000 at each
of the nine races, then there’s another
race that pays around $20,000. That’s
a lot of money on the line.”
The No Prep Kings series has opened
Musi up to a new fanbase as well, as the
popular racing personality has seen her following
increase exponentially since first appearing on
Discovery’s No Prep Kings show.
“This whole Street Outlaws deal, I had to get
used to it,” Musi says. “I have a racer mental-
ity. I was raised like that. I never really cared
about cameras or attention, I just want to go
out there and race. That was the mentality I
had. It took some getting used to, but I love the
fans. Without them, I don’t think I’d have the
same motivation.” – NAT E VA N WAG N E N
Issue 155
LIZZY MUSI