Scelzi goes to quarters in Houston, ousted by teammate Capps

BAYTOWN, Texas (April 1, 2007) - Gary Scelzi gave Kenny Bernstein a payback
in the Funny Car opening round of the O'Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals today,
knocking him out like he did Scelzi at the last event in Gainesville, Fla.

The driver of the Mopar/Oakley Dodge Charger R/T crossed the stripe in 4.804
seconds at 317.05 mph, while Bernstein lost traction, coasting to a
7.931/102.22.

Scelzi then faced his teammate Ron Capps in the quarterfinal stanza, always
a tough match-up when you race a DSR teammate. Both launched with near
identical reaction times (.067 for Capps, .074 for Scelzi), then Scelzi lost
traction early and Capps grabbed the victory with a 4.866/312.42. Scelzi
trailed with a 9.254/96.96.

For the 2005 Funny Car champion, racing without Eric Medlen and the entire
John Force organization this weekend was difficult. "It's great that Ron
Capps won today for Don Schumacher Racing, but it seemed awfully empty
without the Force cars here. And even when you look on the qualifying ladder
the first thing you normally look at, and I think everybody does, is who's
got a Force car and how they end up, who's got to run them and when you've
got to run them. No matter where they qualify or what, those guys, they're
the guys. It almost felt like a match race, even though we were trying to
win it. 

"I would have loved to have won this race and brought a trophy home to John
Medlen. I'm glad that Ron said the trophy he won today will go to the Medlen
family, which I think is where it belongs, at least this first one.

"We're all going to go to Vegas, John Force's team is going to be there and
we won't be back to normal, ever."

Next up is the Summitracing.com NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas
Motor Speedway.

FUNNY CAR POINT STANDINGS
1. Ron Capps, 363
2. Tony Pedregon, 280
3. Robert Hight, 253
4. Gary Scelzi, 245
5. Jim Head, 229
6. Cruz Pedregon, 192
7. Jeff Arend, 171
8. Mike Ashley, 171
9. Bob Gilbertson, 167
10. Eric Medlen, 159
17. Jack Beckman, 107