Gary Scelzi collected the No. 10 spot in Funny Car qualifying for the prestigious U.S. Nationals, driving the Mopar/Oakley Dodge Charger R/T. He also was eliminated in the first round of the Skoal Showdown by his teammate Ron Capps. Scelzi’s other teammate Jack Beckman went on to win the $100,000 bonus event after defeating Capps in the final round.
Scelzi recorded his quickest lap of 4.799 seconds at 322.50 mph in the first qualifying session on Friday. His subsequent laps included a 4.928/314.46, a 4.823/280.72, a 5.019/303.78 (in the Showdown), and a 4.920/315.05.
“The Mopar/Oakley Dodge is going down the track every time,” he said. “We had a clutch disc come apart, we had it drop a cylinder, we had a slide valve malfunction. We’ve had some silly things happen, which is OK to have happen in qualifying.
“As for the Skoal Showdown, Todd (Okuhara, crew chief) is a little disappointed we didn’t put on a little bit better show.
“You know what, the big picture is the POWERade championship,” he added, alluding to the start of the Countdown to Four playoffs on Sunday. “And to me that starts tomorrow. We have a tough customer in Del Worsham (first round), but we went down the track every run. Todd doesn’t seem to be nervous and he wasn’t nervous in Brainerd either when we took out the No. 1 qualifier, so we’re going to go up there guns-ablazing and try to knock these big dogs off.”
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