Scelzi No. 1 qualifier on Friday in Reading

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2005 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
ROUND 19 OF 23
TOYO TIRES NHRA NATIONALS
MAPLE GROVE RACEWAY
READING, PA.
Race Dates: Sept. 16-18, 2005

READING, Pa. (Sept. 16, 2005) - After two of four qualifying sessions, Gary
Scelzi holds the No. 1 qualifying position for this weekend¹s NHRA Nationals
at Maple Grove Raceway. Driving the Mopar/Oakley Dodge Stratus R/T Funny Car
for Don Schumacher Racing, Scelzi posted a 4.766-second elapsed time at
322.11 mph in the evening session, under the coolest conditions of the
weekend.

Scelzi, in the Funny Car points lead by a single point over Robert Hight,
stands eight positions ahead of Hight right now, who¹s in ninth.

³Don¹t count on that happening very long,² he said of that margin. ³In fact,
everyone was making a joke that I was the point leader until I got into
Reading because Robert has been on such a tear in qualifying. We¹re
ovbviously not dead just because we¹ve got only a one-point lead. There¹s
five of us right now that could be the champion. We just don¹t know what¹s
going to happen until we play this thing out.

³It sure looks good with me on top,² he laughed.

As for the hot conditions here today, and not the usually expected cool
temperatures: ³Actually, I like it like this,² he said. ³It¹s a little bit
harder to negotiate and the asphalt here is very porous. It¹s got holes in
it. So when the track gets warm you have a lot of trouble when you come off
the concerete of slipping the tire. We didn¹t know what was going to happen
with these rev limiters and all this type of stuff. Plus we learned a lot
from last year.

³Last year was very difficult to negotiate and (John) Force was a killer,
even in the sunlight. We had our backs against the wall in the final round.
Fortunately for us he had a clutch problem because we knew he could run a
.70 something and we weren¹t going to try to run that.²