Scelzi Hangs on to No. 15 in Houston

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
Round 5 of 23
O'Reilly Spring Nationals presented by Pennzoil
HOUSTON RACEWAY PARK
Race Date: April 11-13, 2003
Saturday, April 12, 2003

SCELZI HANGS ON FOR 15TH STARTING SPOT IN HOUSTON

Gary Scelzi was assured of having a starting position in tomorrow's final
eliminations of the O'Reilly Spring Nationals at Houston Raceway Park, after
qualifying No. 12 on Friday with a 5.321/201.43, in a field of 17 Funny
Cars. In today's two qualifying sessions he shook the tires early in the
first run, coasting to a 7.658/105.74 pass in his Oakley Time Bomb Dodge
Stratus R/T. After struggling all weekend, in the final qualifying session
he and crew chief Mike Neff played the conservative game in order to get
down the track, and Scelzi clicked the lights at at 4.936-second lap at
313.37 mph, the fastest speed of the session, taking the No. 15 spot.

"We just put everything back to normal," he said. "The run before we may
have been just a little bit over center still, so we pulled it back. We got
it down the race track; we just slid it down there. The track is hot; we
weren't going to try to step it up; we just wanted to get it in the show.
Now, Mike's got something to look at. He can look at the computer and say,
OK, now I can touch it a little bit here, a little bit there. The car's
going straight; we've got all the balance right; everything is good. It's
just kind of like starting over. Unfortunately, it took us four runs to get
here."

In the first round of eliminations tomorrow, Scelzi will meet his teammate
Whit Bazemore for the first time this season, in the other team Dodge
Stratus, the Matco Tools Iron Eagle entry. "We got Bazemore first round,
which is going to be a difficult situation," said Scelzi. "But it's really a
win-win situation for Schumacher Racing, no matter what happens. Bazemore's
up third in points, but we're going to race him hard. We're just going to
throw everything we've got at him, including the kitchen sink, because
there's no loss here. We had trouble in qualifying. We've got to put it
where we think it will run an .82, in that neighborhood, and go race Whit
and see what happens. If we win, it's great for us and bad for Whit. If we
lose, it's great for Whit and bad for us. Whit's my friend; whatever happens
happens. I know it's going to be a good clean race, so there's no doubt
about that."

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