Gary Scelzi got booted out of the U.S. Nationals Funny Car eliminations in the first round today, but he’s still buoyed by the performance of the Mopar/Oakley Dodge Charger R/T.
Scelzi faced off against Del Worsham in the opening stanza in a close quarter-mile match-up. Scelzi and Worsham were nearly dead-even at the starting lights (.088 for Worsham, .092 for Scelzi), but it was Worsham first across the finish stripe with a winning 4.841-second pass at 322.04 mph. Scelzi followed .0357-of-a-second behind with a strong 4.872/318.92.
“I’ve got a car that can win a lot of races,” he said. “It would not surprise me to win two or three in a row. It’s just that Indy is one of those things and we just got outrun. Nobody did anything wrong; the car ran extremely well. It goes down the race track. Todd (Okuhara, crew chief) is happy, I’m happy, the Mopar/Oakley Dodge guys are excited. Let’s go to Memphis.
“We didn’t get the results we wanted. It’s not because of the effort, it’s not because the car’s running poorly. I’ve chalked this one down as just one of those unfortunate things.”
Scelzi is seventh of eight in the new Countdown to Four playoffs points, 62 short of the coveted fourth spot. The next three events will determine the top four, who will then vie for the championship in the final two events of the 2007 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series.
“It’s a hiccup that we didn’t want,” he said of his not advancing in the standings, “but we qualified. And that’s important. But you need to win some rounds too. The first thing you have to get out of the way is qualifying. The next thing is you need to win rounds and win races.”
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