Scelzi drives Mopar/Oakley Dodge Charger to No. 12 in Vegas qualifying

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2006 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 5 of 23
NHRA Summitracing.com Nationals
THE STRIP AT LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
Race Date: April 7-9, 2006



LAS VEGAS (April 8, 2006) - Gary Scelzi, who failed to qualify last weekend
in Houston for the first time since 2003, drove the Mopar/Oakley Dodge
Charger Funny Car safely into No. 12 for this weekend's NHRA
SummmitRacing.com Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The reigning NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series Funny Car champion clocked  in
with a 4.813-second elapsed time at 323.97 mph in the second round of
qualifying. The bad news is is that the other three qualifying rounds
(10.545/74.68, 10.422/79.78 and a 9.124/90.17 in the final pass) were still
problematic, giving Scelzi and crew chief Mike Neff cause for concern.

"We're in the field, so we have one more shot to get this thing fixed," said
Scelzi, who faces Tommy Johnson Jr. in the first round of eliminations on
Sunday. "We'll just go up there and take a shot at TJ and see if we can make
this thing not shake. If it doesn't shake and it doesn't smoke the tires at
60 feet it will haul ass.

"But that IF is a big word right now and there's a lot of issues that I
think are coming into play. We're going to work on some things, make some
changes and hopefully it will work tomorrow."