NHRA (DALLAS) - SCELZI MAKES EARLY EXIT...

Gary Scelzi made an early exit today in the opening round of Funny Car eliminations at the O'Reilly NHRA Fall Nationals. Driving the Mopar/Oakley Dodge Charger R/T, Scelzi dropped from fourth to sixth in the Countdown to Four playoff point standings after falling to Cruz Pedregon in the first round.

Pedregon cruised to a 4.819-second elapsed time at 318.32 mph to win the match-up over Scelzi's traction-losing 8.436/93.23.

"It smoked the tires," said Scelzi, who will go into the final race of the Countdown to Four in Richmond, Va., out of the top four. "We have not had this problem, ever. It just went out and it started to rattle. I thought it was going to clear up and it just got worse until it smoked the tires. I pedaled it and Cruz beat us.

"We don't really know what happened or why. It's kind of got us a little in shock. We'll go to Virginia and try to qualify No. 1, 2 or 3, like we've been trying to do all along. Hopefully nothing will go wrong with that, and we'll win the race and be somewhere in the 1 through 4 spots (in the points) and we'll see everybody in Vegas."

The Las Vegas national event Oct. 26-28, will be the start of the final two events of the Countdown to One, the winner of which out of those final four will be named the Funny Car champion.

Next up is the Torco Racing Fuels NHRA Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park, outside of Richmond, Va., Oct. 5-7.

FUNNY CAR POINT STANDINGS: 1. Tony Pedregon, 2259 (winner today over Cruz Pedregon) 2. Robert Hight, 2243 3. Jack Beckman, 2213 4. John Force, 2191 (involved in serious crash today after winning two rounds) 5. Ron Capps, 2188 6. Gary Scelzi, 2186 7. Mike Ashley, 2176 8. Jim Head, 2072

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