Scelzi No. 4 Qualifier in Oakley Dodge in Atlanta

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
Round 7 of 23
SUMMIT RACING EQUIPMENT NHRA SOUTHERN NATIONALS
Atlanta Dragway
Commerce, Ga.
Saturday, May 3, 2003

COMMERCE, Ga. (May 3, 2003) -- Gary Scelzi put his Oakley Time Bomb Dodge
Stratus R/T Funny Car firmly into the No. 4 spot with a solid 4.855-second
pass at 318.09 mph in the second round of qualifying, held today instead of
last night after a rainstorm shortened yesterday's schedule to only one
round. In the first round on Friday, Scelzi struck the tires early in the
run, slowing to a 9.269/89.76 lap. In the final session he was spitting and
banging at the top end towards a 5.358/201.94 pass.

"In the first run yesterday we were just a bit aggressive," he said,
"thinking that this track was going to be better than Bristol because,
theoretically, it normally always is. It wasn't. We spun the tire hard.

"We came back today and tried to get it into the show and then we had cloud
cover. So we had to step up the program just a little bit. And we did. Mike
thought it would run an .85 in that first round and it did exactly what we
thought it would do, which was very comforting after where we've been.

"And then we came back for the last session and it looked like it put a hole
(cylinder) out, probably a second into the run. But halfway down the race
track it's like the motor turned off and came back on and I shut it off.
That's definitely not right. Normally, when it does that there's a big
kaboom or there's some malfunction in the ignition. I'm not sure what it
was, but it made it far enough down the race track to where it wouldn't have
smoked the tires. Good early numbers say it would have run another mid-.80.

"So, according to what the rest of the guys ran that session, we're pretty
happy with that and that's something we can race with. We'll see what the
weather brings tomorrow. If the sun comes out and it gets hot and slippery,
we should be OK. If it doesn't, we should be OK. My fingers are crossed. I
feel good about it. We have a car that's acting like it's supposed to. Even
though we only went down one out of three, I still feel good about the whole
situation."

Scelzi will face Johnny Gray in the first round of eliminations on Sunday.