Scelzi Looking to Up his Gateway Percentage (NHRA)

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
ROUND 12 OF 23
SEARS CRAFTSMAN NHRA NATIONALS
GATEWAY INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
MADISON, ILL.
RACE DATE: JUNE 27-29, 2003

Scelzi Looking to Keep Up his Gateway Percentage

MADISON, Ill. (June 24, 2003) - Gary Scelzi, in his first full season of
Funny Car racing driving the Oakley Time Bomb Dodge Stratus R/T for Don
Schumacher Racing, has the best winning percentage of any pro NHRA driver in
the history of the Sears Craftsman NHRA Nationals at Gateway International
Raceway, with a 15-2 win/loss record driving a Top Fuel Dragster here from
1997 through 2001.

The three-time Top Fuel champion and fastest Funny Car driver on the planet,
with a national record of 328.06 mph set in Joliet, Ill., this year, would
like to add to that record this weekend as the 12th round of the NHRA
POWERade Drag Racing Series heads to this track just outside of St. Louis,
Mo. 

"They said we had the deed to the property because we did so well there,"
says the Fresno, Calif., resident. "Now it's a different story because we're
in Funny Car. Mike Neff (Scelzi's crew chief this year) was runner-up there
last year with Scotty Cannon, so I'm hoping Mike will have a good handle on
things. 

"Gateway has been very good to me, but the way my season has been this year
we'll just have to wait and see," says Scelzi, who is ninth in the point
standings and still seeking his first Funny Car win. "Whatever held true in
Top Fuel has not held true in Funny Car.

"St. Louis is a tough place," he adds. "Obviously the reason is because of
the weather. It's extremely hot, extremely humid. The race track is a
slippery beast. It could easily be 90 degrees, 90 percent humidity. That
would be really hard on the drivers, hard on the crew chiefs, and hard to
get a race car down the race track."

Qualifying and final eliminations will be held in the evening each day this
weekend. "I think that's going to help," comments Scelzi. "But I believe in
200I I won that race like at 2:15 in the morning because of the rain and it
started late. I think it's going to be a little bit better this weekend, but
it's still going to be hot and I don't know how good the track will be. It's
not like it's going to get to 60 degrees in the evening. It's still going to
be probably in the high 70s or low 80s. It'll be better than it would be if
it was run in the daytime, but first round (of eliminations) will still be
run at 4:30 p.m., which means there will still be sun on the race track. The
first round will probably be the most difficult. Normally, first rounds are
the most stable and it gets worse as it goes. It will be the exact opposite
this year.

"The winner is going to be a car that goes down the race track without tire
smoke. As we've seen here of late, it's not always the quickest that wins,
it's the most consistent."

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