Scelzi claims his fifth No. 1 of season in Vegas

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2005 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
No. 21 of 23
ACDelco Las Vegas NHRA Nationals
The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Las Vegas, Nev.
Race Dates: Oct. 21-23, 2005


LAS VEGAS (Oct. 22, 2005) - Gary Scelzi and his Mopar/Oakley Dodge Stratus
R/T crew chief Mike Neff rolled the dice in the final Funny Car qualifying
session for the ACDelco Las Vegas NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas
Motor Speedway and came up winners.

Scelzi claimed his fifth No. 1 qualifying position of the 2005 NHRA POWERade
Drag Racing Series, the 41st of his career and eighth in Funny Car, posting
an elapsed-time track record of 4.746 seconds and top speed of 327.90 mph in
the quickest Funny Car field in NHRA history.

His other runs included a 4.824/324.12, a 4.776/327.90 and a 4.821/322.81.

The Fresno, Calif., native also gained four markers on points leader John
Force, who qualified fifth, and is now 32 points behind in second going into
final eliminations on Sunday, where he'll meet Gary Densham in the first
round.

"That's still two rounds, no matter how you add it up," he said of the
32-point deficit to Force.

"We've had a good car all year long, really. We've just had some stupid
things happen, myself included.

"Zippy and I had been talking - we played golf on Thursday - and, really,
since the middle of last year the car's been very good. A little bit
inconsistent, but this year it's been a lot better. It's just fast and Mike
has really matured as a crew chief.

"We've made changes (before qualifying) backing up from the burnout...and
he's not doing that. He's pretty confident in his tune-up. And it was so
funny. Normally, on a session like this when it keeps getting better and the
numbers keep coming up he keeps going back in the box.

"But evidently he made his mind up before we left the pit area. He was
opening everything up, putting everything on it, doing everything he could.
He made one adjustment up here (at the starting line) about four cars back.
And when Cruz (Pedregon) went out and ran that 4.76 and Capps went 4.75 and
Force went .76 I kept waiting for him to get back to the box and turn the
computer on and change the timing map. Never happened. I thought, Uh oh,
this thing is either going to fly or it's going to smoke the tires.

"When it made it past 60 ft. I said, Here we go. It was a serious run, a
real serious run." 

The second qualifying run each day was run under cooler, darker conditions
than expected. "We kind of had a feeling it was going to run late tonight,"
added Scelzi, "like it did last night and we're not going to race in these
conditions. 

"We've been behind early all weekend. This starting line is exceptional. The
whole race track is really good. Not a lot of cars are smoking the tires so,
realistically, the move we made tonight is going to help us tomorrow, even
though these conditions are great, and unlike tomorrow, this race track will
take a lot more than we've been giving it early.

"We feel we can be a little bit more aggressive early and still run on the
safe side. We're not going to get stupid tomorrow. We're just going to try
to push it a little bit more early and just keep it in that range and it
will be as good as anybody else, maybe even a little better.

"This is a race you have to win. The playing games are over. You need to win
here and you need to win Pomona. But right now we''re just going to focus on
Vegas and we have to win."