Scelzi Stays No. 16 after final qualifying in Denver

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
Round 13 of 23
MOPAR MILE-HIGH NHRA NATIONALS
Bandimere Speedway
Denver, Colorado
Race Date: July 18-20, 2003


DENVER, Colo. (July 19, 2003) - Gary Scelzi made two valiant attempts to
move up into the Funny Car field in his Oakley Time Bomb Dodge Stratus
today, but ended up remaining in the No. 16 qualifying position. In the
third qualifying session of the weekend, he fishtailed it down the left lane
to a 5.540-second elapsed time at 208.20 mph, hazing the tires just before
the finish line. In the fourth and final round, he was on a solid run to the
end of the quarter-mile, improving his time but not his position with a
5.192/287.84 pass, 

"We kind of know where we're at with our Oakley Dodge," said the three-time
Top Fuel champion still looking for his first Funny Car win. "It's going to
be hot tomorrow. If we can run anywhere in the teens tomorrow in the heat of
the day, that's as fast as anybody ran in the heat of the day today.
Conditions will be the same, or similar, or worse.

"So tomorrow's going to be a lot of tire smoke. It's going to be who can get
down to the end of the race track without smoking the tires. We're going to
try some things to keep it from doing that. We haven't smoked the tires real
early, so that means we've got some room there early. When you can get it to
move harder earlier, it's not so bad when you pull the power back out later.
When it's slow early and then you try to apply power, you've got to move
that mass and that's when it smokes the tires. We have some room to play
early and then when we back it up we don't have to back it up as
drastically.

"That's kind of the game plan for tomorrow. We'll see just how hot it is
tomorrow. (Polesitter Tim) Wilkerson smoked the tires the last run. It's
strategy tomorrow. It's strategy and who can go down the race track. I'll
put my money on (my crew chief) Mike Neff."

Scelzi will face the No. 1 qualifier Tim Wilkerson in the first round of
final eliminations tomorrow, which begin at 12:30 p.m. MT.