Scelzi No. 4 in Winternationals final qualifying

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2004 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 1 of 23
K&N FILTERS WINTERNATIONALS
POMONA (Calif.) RACEWAY
RE-SCHEDULED RACE DATES: FEB. 27-29, 2004

POMONA, Calif. (Feb. 28, 2004) - By the time the fifth pair came up to the
starting line for the final qualifying session, Gary Scelzi was on the
bubble in 16th place, following a tire-smoking third pass this afternoon
(7.306/115.07). It was nail-biting time as this would be his last attempt to
get into the K&N Filters Winternationals Funny Car field.

Scelzi and his HEMI Oakley Dodge Stratus easily demonstrated they were back
to form, as Scelzi powered down the quarter mile in 4.814 seconds at 323.74
mph, placing him into the No. 4 spot at the end of the session.

"We tested really well," said the fastest Funny Car pilot on the planet
(329.18 mph national speed record), "but in Phoenix testing we made a change
to the clutch that we thought was going to be better and give us a bigger
window than we already had. We did everything that we possibly could. We got
down the race track in Phoenix, but when we got here it just wasn't going to
work.

"So, almost in desperation we went ahead and went back to what we had run
before that we have some data on and we have an idea of what we needed to do
and it went out and smoked the tires in the first run because it just had a
little too much motor. So we took a little motor away and we figured it
would run an .81 in the final session and that's exactly what it did."

Sunday is another day, with final eliminations beginning at 11 a.m. The
first round will see Scelzi facing Terry Haddock. "We have some room to
play. We can run 4.75, .74 if we need to," Scelzi added. "But we need to go
back out there and we need to run a .79 to an .80, somewhere in there in the
first round and we'll go from there. We'll race the race track. And if we
think we need to run a .75 we think that we can do that."

Today's two qualifying rounds on top of one yesterday and one last week was
beneficial to Scelzi and his team. "With these one-day qualifying sessions
in one week, it's pretty good to get two back-to-back," he said. "The
weather's not changing that much, the race track is the same. There's not a
lot of variables. It narrows that window down. So, I think we're pretty good
right now. I'm pretty proud of Mike (Neff, crew chief) and all the guys with
the Oakley Dodge. It's a HEMI!"