Scelzi seeks first Gainesville win

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2005 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 3 of 23
36TH ANNUAL NHRA GATORNATIONALS
GAINESVILLE (Fla.) RACEWAY
Race Dates: March 18-20, 2005

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 15, 2005) - Gary Scelzi has won at 17 of the 21
dragstrips on which the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series holds its national
events. Gainesville Raceway is not one of them. The driver of the
Mopar/Oakley Dodge Stratus R/T Funny Car and three-time Top Fuel champion
wants to change that this weekend at the NHRA Gatornationals.

The Fresno native captured his first NHRA Top Fuel crown as a rookie in
1997, and has notched 29 national-event wins in both Top Fuel and Funny Car,
four of them since he joined the Funny Car class full-time with Don
Schumacher Racing in 2003. But he can't count Denver, Bristol, Englishtown
and Gainesville among them.

"Gainesville is one of only four race tracks that I've never won at, and
winning here in Gainesville would mean a lot," he said.

"You only get so many attempts in a lifetime, and my attempts are getting
fewer as my career progresses," said the 44-year-old. "And it's just
something that I would love to have. I have been fortunate enough to
accomplish a lot of things, set a lot of records, but I would love nothing
more than to have won at every facility that we race at, whether it be in a
dragster or a Funny Car."

That's not all he'd like to achieve. "I feel that every year the pressure
builds more and more, at least on myself. Because you never know what's
going to happen. You never know what's going to happen with sponsors, you
never know what's going to happen with car owners, you never know, at least
for Gary Scelzi, the future of drag racing. I want to win as often as I can
and then if and when the time comes, when things go awry, I can say I've
accomplished all I wanted to do. I'd hate to leave this sport thinking that
I didn't accomplish all the things I wanted to.

"And one of the things I want to do is to be the second man on this planet
to have won a world championship in Top Fuel and in Funny Car," he said.
Kenny Bernstein is the first.

"I never take anything for granted because nothing lasts forever," added a
philosophical Scelzi.

But, first things first: facing the challenge of competing on a quarter-mile
that was re-surfaced last year and didn't produce the expected quick laps
and fast speeds at the 2004 Gatornationals.

"There should be more rubber on it by now, and it should bond quicker
because it's seasoned a little bit," Scelzi commented. "It's a year old. I
don't know if they ground it, so I don't know what the status of the race
track is going to be.

"I'm assuming it's going to be better. But I recall it was awfully porous on
the concrete portion, and the rubber wasn't sticking to it very well. We can
only hope it's improved.

"It's always been a very good race track, especially in the sun. And that's
something we've always looked forward to. Gainesville has historically been
a good race track even when it got a little of temperature on it. After they
re-paved it last year, we just assumed that it would continue that way, but
we were fooled 

"But I can't hardly believe that it won't be a really good race track,
especially after a year. Normally tracks get better after a year after
they've been redone."

Scelzi and crew chief Mike Neff started the 2005 season with the same
momentum they ended 2004, where they reached the final round in three of the
last eight races, won two of them, and moved into a battle for second place
with Del Worsham at the final race. However, after two races, they find
themselves 10th in the standings, despite Scelzi's having set his Funny Car
career-best ET of 4.717 seconds and overall fastest speed of 331.53 mph at
the season-opener.

"I'd say our performance so far this season is mediocre for our standards,"
he said. "We've had signs of brilliance, but whether it be me, or whether it
be the car smoking the tires, Mike and I need to both be on the same page.
We need to get the job done and we need to get it done now. We don't need to
wait until the middle of the year to make our move. We need to make things
happen right now.

"And maybe we're just putting a lot of pressure on ourselves that doesn't
need to put on right now. But I think we both feel that way. We want to get
the job done early and we want to stay in the game all year long.

"We have improved. Like I said before, patience is not one of a drag racer's
finer points. And we want to win more than our fair share of races. Until we
do that we probably won't be happy. And that's what's going to make this
team a championship team. We don't strive for average."

SCHEDULE:
On Friday, March 18, pro qualifying sessions are at 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.
On Saturday, March 19, pro qualifying sessions are scheduled for 11:30 a.m.
and 2:30 p.m. On Sunday, March 20, final eliminations begin at 11 a.m.

TELEVISION:
On Sunday, March 20, ESPN2 will televise two hours of qualifying highlights
at 12:30 a.m. (ET).Also, on Sunday, March 20, ESPN2 will telecast NHRA 2Day,
a 30-minute weekly news magazine show, at 11:30 a.m. (ET). And, again on
Sunday, March 20, ESPN2 will televise two hours of final eliminations at 5
p.m. (ET). 

GARY SCELZI QUICK FACTS:

* At the 2004 Gatornationals, Scelzi qualified fourth, lost first round to
Tony Bartone
* Is first Funny Car driver to break the 330-mph barrier (330.15 mph at
Route 66 Raceway in 2004)
* Third in 2004 Funny Car points, with three wins in six final rounds
* Qualified in top five nine times in 2004, No. 1 once
* Age 44, born and raised in Fresno, Calif., where he lives with wife
Julianne and sons Dominic and Giovanni
* Runs Scelzi Enterprises, a custom truck body design and manufacturing
business in Fresno with his two brothers
* Is a three-time Top Fuel Dragster champion
* Won his first Top Fuel crown as a rookie
* Has four Funny Car wins, 25 Top Fuel wins
* Sixth in 2003 Funny Car points, his first full season in that class
* 2005 is his third straight season racing for Don Schumacher Racing
* Is the only NHRA driver to have won in Top Fuel, Funny Car, Top Alcohol
Dragster and Top Alcohol Funny Car. He accomplished this feat at Infineon
Raceway in 2003
* Is one of the few Funny Car drivers who have a winning record against the
12-time Funny Car champion John Force: 9-7.