Scelzi qualifies No. 5 in Vegas

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2004 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 22 of 23
ACDELCO LAS VEGAS NHRA NATIONALS
THE STRIP AT LAS VEGAS
RACE DATES: Oct. 29-31, 2004

SCELZI TAKES NO. 5 SPOT IN VEGAS QUALIFYING

LAS VEGAS (Oct. 30, 2004) - Gary Scelzi drove his HEMI-powered Oakley Dodge
Stratus into fifth place in Funny Car qualifying after four rounds for the
penultimate event of the 2004 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series at The Strip
at Las Vegas.

By virtue of his strong 4.772-second pass at 322.42 mph set in the Friday
evening session, which was good for No. 2 at that time, Scelzi became the
fifth of nine Funny Cars to post elapsed times in the 4.7-second range this
weekend, and will face Tommy Johnson Jr. in the first round of eliminations
on Sunday.

Today's final session, delayed long enough because of celebrations for the
Budweiser Shootout, John Force clinching the Funny Car championship and
other events until temperatures cooled and shadows fell on the track,
produced a tire-smoking 11.413-second pass at 84.55 mph, which surprised
Scelzi and crew chief Mike Neff.

"Who knows?," said the three-time Top Fuel champion who is aiming to end the
season in second place in Funny Car points following these final two events.
"We made it down the track three out of four times (4.998/254.86 in the
first session and 4.860/311.63 in the third). We had a problem on the first
run, but we still ran a 4.99 shutting off early.

"Then we had the great run at a .77, so we know we can run the numbers. I
just would like to have seen it make it down the track that last time. We're
not really sure what happened. We had a 'phenomenon.'

"The conditions were great, so that's kind of got us stumped a little bit.
But tomorrow is a different day. We're going to run in the sunlight. We know
what to do. We ran an .86 (in sunlight in the middle of the day today). We
know what to do to pick that up to run a low .80. Those are the conditions
we're going to run in tomorrow, so we'll just see what happens."

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