Scelzi grabs No. 1 Friday night in Vegas

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2005 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 5 of 23
NHRA SUMMITRACING.COM NATIONALS
THE STRIP AT LAS VEGAS
Race Dates: April 15-17, 2005


LAS VEGAS (April 15, 2005) - Gary Scelzi qualified No. 1 in the Mopar/Oakley
Dodge Stratus R/T Funny Car and No. 2 in the Meer Capital Partners Alcohol
Funny Car today, following two rounds in each.

Scelzi smoked the tires in the first round of Fuel Funny Car qualifying and
was out of the field, then posted a straight, strong run in the evening
session to take No. 1 with a 4.797-second pass at 325.06 mph. His teammates
Whit Bazemore and Ron Capps are not qualified after they lost traction in
both qualifying rounds. Two more Fuel Funny Car qualifying sessions are
scheduled for Saturday.

"Great job by Mike (Neff, crew chief)," said the Fresno, Calif., native.
"It's not exactly the plan that we normally have and obviously the plan we
have we haven't executed all year long. We want to get the car in on the
first run. We haven't done that since the beginning of the season.

"Then you have to pull back for the night session, because you want to get
into the show. Fortunately with our two teammates (Whit Bazemore and Ron
Capps) we pretty much knew what they have (tune-up-wise). And we saw them
get in trouble early, so Mike, after (Bob) Gilbertson blew up had a little
insurance policy and pulled it back just a taste more.

"It's a good thing he did. The race track is definitely not what we thought
it was. This place is always so good and so incredible and we came from some
pretty good race tracks with cloud cover. This is the first hot race track,
really, we've been on this year. And I think everybody was just a little too
over-zealous on the first run and they needed to pull it back.

"Mike seems to be in control of his tune-up and is able to put it just about
where he wants to. Even if we struggle in qualifying he's been able to make
this thing run very well in eliminations. With a couple of hiccups this
season, with these holeshot losses and other issues, we're not where we want
to be in points. 

"I feel pretty good. Tomorrow is going to be hot, just like it's going to be
on Sunday so we'll work on our race-day tune-up tomorrow.

"And being No. 2 in Alcohol Funny Car isn't bad either. I haven't been in
one in nine years. And to put that thing in No. 2 and run as quick as that
car has ever been and as quick as I have ever been in Alcohol Funny Car is
pretty exciting too."