Quotes from Scelzi re Vegas DNQ

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
Round 4 of 23
SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals
The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Sunday, April 6, 2003

Contact: Judy Stropus, 203-438-0501

SCELZI DNQs FOR FIRST TIME THIS SEASON

GARY SCELZI, OAKLEY DODGE STRATUS R/T FUNNY CAR, failed to qualify for the
SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals. This is his first DNQ this season, driving
for Don Schumacher Racing. Scelzi endured a violent explosion on Friday
evening, but managed to post a 15th starting position. After making repairs
and switching to the Dodge "Grab Life by the Horns" body, he dropped out of
the field in the third round on Saturday. He made valiant attempts, but
failed to make a clean pass in either of the remaining sessions, and ended
up No. 20.

SCELZI: "It's frustrating. This team is a championship-caliber team. They
were near misses. We had some clutch problems in the first two runs. The
front end got in the air; it was going to fly; it was going to run a .70
something. It got over by the wall, I pedaled it. For whatever reason it
exploded. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

"We came back yesterday and made a run and it was a just little too
aggressive and it smoked the tires at 400 feet. We came back last night and
it got in trouble. We took power out of it; the motor seemed happier. It
started to rattle the tire; it moved me over to the right. When you get out
of the groove you're in trouble. The front end was in the air again,
bobbling. I mean, we got behind. And for some reason the car's wanting to
carry the front end here and it hasn't wanted to do that anywhere.

"All we've done is make a supercharger change and we know it's better and
the motor is just too happy. But the supercharger we were used to working
with that we used in Gainesville in testing and then we started with in the
first two runs here we exploded and we ruined. We put a new one on that was
even better than that one. So we kept slowing it down, the boost was
dropping, but the motor was still ahead of everything. And that car was
getting violent. So you can't take a ton of power out of it'; you still have
to keep some power in it and we just ran out of time.

"It's frustrating, it's upsetting. There's no way to sugar-coat it. But, you
know what, you've just go to tighten your belt another notch and we'll suck
it up. We'll test here tomorrow; we're going to make four runs, maybe five,
until we find out what we've got and we get the consistency back that we
started with. It's got to go down the race track, the front end's got to be
on the ground, and we'll go from there."

COULD IT HAVE BEEN THE LEFT LANE? "No. It hit the bumps in the left lane in
the first run. That's what upset the car. The car was in trouble earlier
here (in final session), and we never got to the bumps before it got in
trouble. We have front wheel sensors and it had both front wheels in the air
last night on the last run and I can't remember the last time it's done
that. It'll bobble the left front, but not the right front. It had them both
in the air. I had the wheel turned hard left and when it landed it jerked
the car left and it upset it and it smoked the tire. It's six of one, half a
dozen of another. What do you do? and how far do you back up? This thing is
an animal. It's Godzilla. Who lit a fire in its tail? We don't know, but
we'll figure it out tomorrow and hopefully we'll be really good in Houston."

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