Scelzi ousted in first round in Bristol

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
Mac Tools Thunder Valley NHRA Nationals
Round 6 of 23
Bristol (Tenn.) Dragway
Sunday, April 27, 2003

Contact: Judy Stropus, 203-438-0501, cell 203-243-2438

SCELZI OUSTED IN FIRST ROUND

BRISTOL, Tenn. (April 27, 2003) -- When you qualify No. 8 in any category of
the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series it's a good thing, because it puts you
in the top half of the field and it gives you lane choice in the first round
of eliminations. But qualifying No. 8 also places you in risky territory,
because you then have to race the No. 9 qualifier, who probably posted an
elapsed time during qualifying which is pretty close to yours (4.869 for
Scelzi, 4.870 for Skuza).

In today's first round of final eliminations in the Funny Car class of the
Mac Tools Thunder Valley NHRA Nationals at Bristol Dragway, No. 8 qualifier
Gary Scelzi, in the Oakley Time Bomb Dodge Stratus R/T Funny Car, knew it
could be a close race against Dean Skuza. Scelzi launched first in the
favored right lane, but Skuza moved ahead quickly, and by the one-eighth
mile, when Scelzi spun the tires, it was a clear path for Skuza, who won
with a 4.952/302.48 pass against Scelzi's 5.419/208.49.

"The race track was good early in the right lane, and it wasn't as good
further out," said Scelzi, the three-time Top Fuel champion, now full-time
in Funny Car. "We made changes to slow the car down and it just didn't do
it. The motor seemed like it was up and wearing more clutch, which brought
the temperature up more, which made it more aggressive, which in turn smoked
the tires. I haven't heard yet, but I'm sure that we're going to be testing
here tomorrow. Hopefully, it'll be hot like this and we'll learn something,
because when we get to Atlanta it's going to be very similar. Race
conditions could be hot. And as soon as the track temperature gets up over
100 degrees, 110, 120, the race track gets slippery. So we need to learn how
to do this. Did it threw us a curve? Yeah, probably, but we're going to
learn from it and go on. We have to keep our chins up.

"Honestly, I'm a little let down because I think we did everything right.
I'm not a tuner and certainly don't want to be one, because these things are
finicky. I felt like Mike (Neff, crew chief) did everything right. I'm a
little at awe that it smoked the tires where it did and as hard as it did.
It just was out of character for our race car. I don't think there was
anything wrong with it. Nothing malfunctioned. I just don't know why it's
not happy with me.

"I didn't see him, but we were side by side. I had a hundredth (of a second)
on him on the starting line, but we did give up a hundredth in 60 feet. Our
car needs to snap quicker earlier. We need to work on that 60-foot (mark).
We all steal e.t. (elapsed time) on Sundays to get a better reaction time,
to shorten the race track. Even at that, (John) Force's cars (which
qualified 1-2-3 here) are just incredibly quick to 60 feet, far superior
than any of them out there. We need to work on that and that's what we are
going to work on. Can we find it? I hope so, because we have been working on
it for a while trying to get that better. We've got to get it good enough to
accelerate early without smoking the tires."

Round 7 of the series comes up this weekend at Atlanta Dragway, in Commerce,
Ga., where Scelzi has won twice (in 1999 and 2000) in a Top Fuel Dragster,
and was runner-up in 1997. Although he's never raced a Funny Car here, he
certainly knows the track.

"Atlanta is one of those race tracks that's tricky," he said. "It's not a
great race track, but I ran a 4.49 there in a dragster when it got cool. So,
like here in Bristol, when we have cool temperatures and cloud cover, that's
the great equalizer. The race track gets good no matter what, pretty much.
It's not a bumpy race track, so we don't have to worry about those types of
things. It just depends on weather."

***



I don't think lane has anything to do with it. It didn't work, so you pick
yourslef up, dust yourself off, and we'll go run the wheels off of it and
you just try to learn and hope you get it, and that's all we can do."