Gainesville: Gary Scelzi Friday summary

Scelzi In No. 5 In Friday Qualifying

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 19, 2004) - On a hotter day than expected in Northern Florida, Gary Scelzi qualified No. 5 on a smooth yet difficult track surface at Gainesville Raceway in his HEMI-powered Oakley Dodge Stratus Funny Car. In today's first of four qualifying rounds, in which no car broke the 4-second mark, Scelzi took the No. 2 position with a 5.037/278.81.

In the second qualifying session, he expected to improve his position, but found himself dropping into fifth. The earlier pass stood, as the 5.249/212.01 he posted in the second round was slower.

"I thought we could run a mid- to low 4.90. I got it out of the groove and there is no groove here," he said of the second pass. "You have to be real careful. The car ran pretty well, it picked up early, better than our 5.03. Then it spun the tire a little bit, got me out of the groove and that's all it took.

"We're Ok, we're in good shape. We're playing with some things. The tests in Phoenix under horrible conditions really helped pay off, because these conditions are very similar. We're glad that we learned a lot in Phoenix testing, so we should be good tomorrow."

Asked if this is a 330-mph track, he responded: "Absolutely not. We will be lucky if anyone goes 300 here."

-dsr-