Scelzi gives Vegas tests an A-plus

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2005 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
PRE-SEASON TESTING
THE STRIP AT LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
JAN. 21-23, 2005

GARY SCELZI POSTS SIXTH QUICKEST PASS OF TEST WEEKEND, GIVES TESTS AN A-PLUS

LAS VEGAS (Jan. 23, 2005) - Gary Scelzi posted the sixth quickest pass of
the weekend at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway during pre-season
testing for the 2005 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series, a 4.766-second ET at
326.71 mph.

Driving the newly-painted and decaled Mopar/Oakley Dodge Stratus Funny Car
with the "Snow Camo" design created by Oakley's Mad Scientist Jim Jannard
and Team Mopar's Kevin Miller, Scelzi's four quickest and straightest passes
included his 4.766/326.71, 4.767/326.63, 4.777/325.61 and 4.805/326.56.

"We were kind of just refining things this weekend," he said, "like the new
MSD timing boxes that we have that are legal now, as well as a new
supercharger, a new this, new that, and we just took our time.

"After the first couple of runs we were able to make this thing go down the
race track at will.

"The learning curve here was tremendous. We learned a lot of things. We
could make the car do what we want it to do. And that's a big thing for us
to be able to do this during the season - to start out well at Pomona and
continue on and not get behind like we did last year.

"There are no changes from last year just refinement, new parts, maybe a
little neater and lighter stuff here and there, so I think the test session
was a complete success. I give it an A-plus. We didn't really try to set a
world record, we just tried to go down the race track and we seemed to be
able to do that pretty consistently.

"I'm very pleased. I'm looking forward to going to Phoenix testing (next
weekend), with a different type of race track, different air and see how we
do there. If we do well there, we'll finish our testing early, get
everything fresh and organized a little bit more and we'll be ready for
Pomona (season-opener Feb. 10-13)."



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