Scelzi out in second round in Columbus

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
PONTIAC EXCITEMENT NHRA NATIONALS
Round 11 of 23
National Trail Raceway
Columbus, Ohio
Race Date: June 13-15, 2003

Contact: Judy Stropus, 203-438-0501, cell 203-243-2438

SCELZI GOES TO SECOND ROUND, IS OUSTED BY CAPPS

COLUMBUS, Ohio (June 15, 2003) - Gary Scelzi had an easy win in the first
round of final eliminations in his Oakley Time Bomb Dodge Stratus R/T Funny
Car today against Cruz Pedregon, with a 4.830-second elapsed time and a
strong 321.42 mph against Pedregon's 5.217/223.95.

In the second round of the Pontiac Excitement NHRA Nationals, the 11th of 23
events in the POWERade Drag Racing Series, he was paired with Ron Capps and
was presented with an in-your-face reaction time of .025 to his own .076.
Capps was there for the taking, however, as he spun the tires and hit the
timing lights at a 5.024/294.75. Scelzi couldn't capitalize on it, though,
as he smoked the tires at half track, pedaling to a losing 6.274/167.20
pass.

"Frustration, with a capital F," said the three-time Top Fuel champion.
"Three great runs in qualifying; we went quicker every time. First round it
was great, then the sun comes out and it gets hot and we're in trouble from
the time we hit the gas. We got beat by a 5.02 and it's just hard to swallow
because we felt we had a good tune-up for the heat. Obviously, we were just
on the wrong side of it, too aggressive again. If we're going to compete and
get ourselves in the top five, this can't happen.

"I know Mike (Neff, crew chief) is pulling his hair out," he continued.
"We're going to have to do something different. We're going to have to
change parts on this car. We're in the process of working on some of that
stuff right now. We just don't have the parts available. So, we'll be OK,
probably in St. Louis, because it will be at night and hopefully by then we
will have some of the stuff to try and maybe we can try it on Monday in St.
Louis (testing) in the heat because obviously it's going to be hot there -
that's almost a given - and see if we can make some changes.

"We need to quicken these cars up in the first 300 feet and when we try to
quicken them up or try to slow them down they're either still too aggressive
or not aggressive enough. There's just not a happy medium."

Scelzi hangs on to ninth place in the Funny Car point standings, with 482
points.

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