Scelzi Eclipses his World's Fastest Funny Car speed in Joliet

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 10 of 23
LUCAS OIL NHRA ROUTE 66 NATIONALS
ROUTE 66 RACEWAY
JOLIET, ILL.
Race Date: May 30-June 1


POST QUALIFYING

SCELZI IS FASTEST FUNNY CAR DRIVER ON PLANET...AGAIN!

JOLIET, Ill. (May 31, 2003) - Gary Scelzi became the fastest Funny Car
driver on the planet again, eclipsing his 326.95-mph run at Englishtown,
N.J., two weeks ago, with an even faster 327.98-mph pass today. He
accomplished this feat in today's second round of qualifying (only one round
was held on Friday because of rain). He also claimed his career best elapsed
time of 4.782 seconds on that lap, earning him No. 6 qualifying position.

Scelzi, driving the Oakley Time Bomb Dodge Stratus R/T, attempted to back up
his speed for a national record in today's final round of qualifying, but
was unable to do so, posting a cylinder-dropping 4.908/308.07 in a
side-by-side pass against his teammate Whit Bazemore. He still has final
eliminations on Sunday in which to back it up for the national record.

The three-time Top Fuel champion who is seeking his first Funny Car win will
face Tim Wilkerson in tomorrow's first round of eliminations.

"It's great to be the fastest Funny Car driver again," he said, "but we want
the national record. That's the reason Dodge has done what it's done and
given us the wind tunnel time and the engineering support. We want to back
it up. That's our whole goal.

"In the last run, the backup run, a disc wore at normally more than it
should have and it dropped a cylinder. Hence our slow e.t. and slow speed.
We just can't get that break to get us over the hump. But that's OK. It's
just qualifying. We ran very well. We ran a .78, our personal best. The
important thing now is to go out tomorrow and win the race. It should run
over 324.70 mph, to back up the record. We're not going to worry about it;
it should just do it. And if we can run 4.70 somethings and .80 flats then
we've got a good horse to ride into the sunset with, I hope."

When asked if the speed was a surprise, he responded: "It really wasn't. I
did a radio show this morning and I said there's a real good chance we could
run a 327, even a 328, and so I have witnesses - everybody who was listening
into the radio show this morning. So, it wasn't a surprise, because these
bodies have been fast all year long. If Bazemore hasn't been fast, we've
been fast. So it's been pretty common. A surprise? No. It's nice to have the
fastest hot rod in the world."

Crew chief Mike Neff was calm, cool and pleasantly surprised. "It's been
going pretty fast here lately," he said, "and we knew if we could get it to
go a little faster speed at half track that it should carry that to the
finish line. And that's exactly what it did.

"We ran a couple of miles an hour faster to half track than we have been and
ran a couple faster on the top end. It's been showing signs of it. We've run
fast here lately, so it's a pleasant surprise. We knew it could do it, but
you're always still a little shocked to actually see it do it. We're very
happy that things are turning around for us. We still have a couple of
gremlins here and there that just seem to keep aborting runs for us, but
hopefully we're back on the right track and we feel real positive about
everything."