Scelzi in first-round loss at Gatornationals

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2004 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 3 of 23
NHRA GATORNATIONALS
GAINESVILLE (FLA.) RACEWAY
RACE DATES: MARCH 19-21, 2004



GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 21, 2004) - Gary Scelzi and crew chief Mike Neff
continue to try to make friends with their all-new HEMI-powered Oakley Dodge
Stratus Funny Car, but it's been a challenging relationship, especially at
this newly-repaved Gainesville Raceway, home of the NHRA Gatornationals

Scelzi, who started off the 2004 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series in third
place in the Funny Car point standings after two races, the highest position
he's held in his short Funny Car career, dropped to No. 5 today after losing
in the first round to Tony Bartone.

With a .127 reaction time to Bartone's .160, Scelzi was in front as the
green light flashed, but at 330 feet the car struck the tires, slowing
Scelzi to a losing 6.757/135.35 pass. Bartone took the win with a
5.074/265.33 lap.

"We're very disappointed," said Scelzi, the fastest Funny Car driver on the
planet (329.18 mph). "We thought that we had all our bases covered. We saw
two cars smoke the tires in front of us in different areas. Mike Neff made
an adjustment to slow the car down even more, and it did.

"We took timing out to slow the car down in critical areas and it did that.
It was running fine and then it just smoked the tires, almost like it hit
oil. It didn't hit oil, but it's very confusing and very discouraging to
have something like that happen.

"The good news is it's early in the year," continued the Fresno native.

The team will conduct tire tests here on Monday. "We've got a whole new
curve ball thrown at us now with these new Goodyear tires that we're going
to test on Monday because in Las Vegas the supply is gone. So we'll no
longer be running the tires that we've become accustomed to and gotten used
to. We're not sure what the new tires want or what they like, but they seem
to be more sensitive than the tires that we're running."

Gainesville Raceway's new surface has been the talk of the pits this
weekend, and it hasn't all been positive. Scelzi, however, sees a future
potential for this historic facility in Northern Florida where a 330-mph run
was predicted for this weekend, but failed to materialize. "This track needs
to be ground to knock the roughness off of it," he said. "It's smooth, which
is a great start. You can't just run on a green race track like this without
grinding it. Hopefully we'll complain enough to get them to grind this thing
for next year so this track will be one of those that produces big speeds
and great E.T.s." 

Next up is Round 4, the NHRA Summitracing.com Nationals at The Strip at Las
Vegas Motor Speedway.