Commerce: Gary Scelzi Saturday summary

Scelzi No. 5 in Atlanta qualifying

COMMERCE, Ga. (May 15, 2004) - Except for losing traction at the hit of the throttle in the third qualifying session, Gary Scelzi credits his HEMI-powered Oakley Dodge Stratus Funny Car with three stout qualifying rounds this weekend, placing him No. 5 in the field, with the 4.828/319.39 pass set on Friday night.

In today's final qualifying session, the three-time Top Fuel champion posted the fourth quickest elapsed time of that session (4.871 seconds) at a speed of 310.70 mph, slower than expected.

"We burned it up a little bit at the end, I think," he said of that final pass. "Our coil quit or something and it put out two holes at the finish. That's why I didn't run any speed. Basically, for me, it went down the race track three out of four times this weekend. And that's what we need to start getting back in the rhythm.

"That will come in play again tomorrow," he added, referring to similar track and weather conditions expected during eliminations. "The track temperature was 125 degrees and I'm sure we had one of the quickest 60-ft. increments out there, so that's big, because our car is normally three hundredths behind at 60 feet, then it makes it up from 300 feet on. Now we've got to get our speed back and make this thing continue not to smoke the tires."

Scelzi will meet Jim Head in the first round of eliminations on Sunday, which begin at 11 a.m.

-dsr-