Championship Drag Racing

Pontiac Excitement NHRA Nationals
Columbus, Ohio
(June 10-13)

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Gary Scelzi Hemi Oakley Dodge Stratus R/T Funny Car

Reports: Sunday Saturday Friday Pre-race

Columbus, Sunday: Consistency and performance marked Gary Scelzi's run to his fourth career Funny Car final round today, his second of the season, in the Hemi-powered Oakley Dodge Stratus Funny Car.

The national top-speed record holder (and first to reach 330) of 330.55 mph first disposed of Tommy Johnson Jr. with a decent 4.959/300.80 pass. Then he placed Gary Densham squarely in his sights to send him packing with a 4.953/313.15 lap, followed by a holeshot win against Eric Medlen in the semifinal: 4.936/313.00/.079 R/T for Scelzi; 4.912/301.60/.123 R/T for Medlen.

Del Worsham was his opponent in the final round, and for the second round in a row Scelzi did not have lane choice and was relegated to the less-desirable right lane for the match-up. What some may have considered a setback, Scelzi and crew chief Mike Neff took in stride. It became a moot point, as both Worsham and Scelzi, who were neck-to-neck at the launch, struck the tires at about 400 feet. Each pedaled to the finish, but it was Worsham first across the line with a 5.487/254.62 against Scelzi's 5.651/206.95.

This effort moved Scelzi from seventh to fifth in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series Funny Car points.

"Everything was great," he said. "The race track just got hot and it just got loose out there. The Hemi-powered Oakley Dodge is doing exactly what Mike wants it to do. When it spun the tires, I pedaled it and it broke the blower studs. Otherwise, we'd be having a different conversation right now.

"I'm really happy," added the Fresno native. "It's not a minute too soon to make the move that we need to make, because we didn't need to fall behind in points. We've got a race car right now. We can swing the bat as hard as anybody but we weren't trying to. We were trying to race smart and that's exactly what we did and it got us to the final.

"It was hot, it was slippery and we both smoked the tires. It's just one of those things. We weren't going to roll over, but we weren't ordering steak and lobster, we were going for chicken dinner."

"You get to enough of those finals you're going to win your share. This is a great way to start off the three-race swing. Two finals in four races. I'm pretty pleased right now.

Columbus, Saturday: Gary Scelzi produced two more solid runs down the National Trail Raceway quarter-mile today to qualify No. 6 in his Hemi-powered Oakley Dodge Stratus Funny Car.

Following his 4.876/301.40 pass in the third qualifying session, good for seventh place, the national top-speed record holder of 330.55 mph found himself in No. 13 after seven of 10 pairs had completed their runs. Scelzi then posted the fourth quickest lap of that round (4.812) at the fastest speed of that session (323.81 mph), vaulting him into the No. 6 spot.

"It was almost according to plan," he said. "The Hemi-powered Oakley Dodge went down the race track every single time. It went quicker every single run. The car is responding well. There's more left in it. We're not getting carried away. We're trying to qualify smart, hopefully we can race smart tomorrow.

"And that's our game plan. We need to win some rounds, win a race or two. In the meantime, everything looks really good. It's doing what it's supposed to do. And to make one of these cars do that is a pretty big thing."

Scelzi will meet Tommy Johnson Jr. in the first round of eliminations.

Columbus, Friday: Gary Scelzi posted two good passes today under humid and slick conditions following a rain delay, ending up No. 7 with a 4.907-second elapsed time at 309.27, despite losing a cylinder on his Hemi-powered Oakley Dodge Stratus Funny Car in the second qualifying session.

In today's first session at the newly-repaved National Trail Raceway, he hazed the tires at about 500 feet of the quarter-mile, then pedaled it to complete a straight run of 5.222/296.50.

"The Hemi-powered Oakley Dodge ran really well today," he said, "even though it lost a cylinder tonight and we hazed the tires in the first session. (Crew chief) Mike Neff and the team have done a great job and we now have a total of seven good runs, counting the five at Topeka."

Columbus, pre-race: Gary Scelzi is in the midst of a six-car battle to move up in the Funny Car standings, as the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series visits National Trail Raceway this weekend, outside of Columbus, for the 10th round of 23 events in the 2004 championship chase.

Scelzi and his Mike Neff-tuned Hemi-powered Oakley Dodge Stratus continue to be the team to beat for national top-speed records after the Fresno native demolished his own top-speed record of 329.18 mph at Route 66 Raceway with a blistering 330.55-pass, backed up by a 330.15-mph run for a new national record.

It's his first Funny Car championship, however, that he's aiming for and it's been a rocky road this season for the three-time Top Fuel champion who is in his second full season of Funny Car competition. One semifinal round reached and a runner-up finish mixed in with several early-round losses sees Scelzi in seventh in the Funny Car point standings. He's been as high as third this season.

A strong result this weekend at National Trail could change the complexion of the title chase for Scelzi, who has drivers Eric Medlen, Gary Densham and Tim Wilkerson in his sights to beat, in order to boost him up in the rankings, as well as Phil Burkart Jr. and Tony Pedregon behind him to keep at bay.

"It's important to keep our heads above water," said Scelzi, the 2003 Sonoma event victor and winner of nine rounds so far this year, as the NHRA circus heads into another back-to-back three-race swing beginning in Columbus. "We need to go rounds, we need to win a race or two. And then we need to evaluate where we're at after these three races.

"We need to come out swinging right now, that's what we need to do. We don't need to fall any further behind; we need to make some gains. Because you're either going to come out of here right in the middle of it or you can come out way behind. Before we get into the Western Swing we need to be right in the middle of this thing; otherwise we could lose sight of our goal."

First on the agenda is to win this Sunday. "National Trail is historically a real tricky race track," said Scelzi, winner here in 1997 and No. 1 qualifier in 2000 in the Top Fuel class. "It's been re-paved. They extended the concrete pad and I understand it's pretty smooth. As I've said before of other re-paved quarter-miles this season, it's going to be a green race track because it is all new. It's probably going to take until Saturday for the track to come in.

"Weather is always an issue here too because of the humidity; it can rain at any time. Sometimes it can be hot and humid; sometimes it can be overcast and humid. We're hoping for overcast, because that always makes the track tighter."