Gainesville: Gary Scelzi Friday summary

AFTER TWO ROUNDS OF QUALIFYING:

GARY SCELZI, OAKLEY "GRAB LIFE BY THE HORNS" DODGE STRATUS R/T FUNNY CAR, clings to No. 16 qualifying position with an uncharacteristic 5.787-second lap at 288.73 mph, for a team that has become accustomed to going down the track at will.

SCELZI: "For the first time in 12 runs the Oakley Dodge smoked the tires on two runs. On the second run I had to pedal it and got it in the show. We're No. 16, but the thing that we tried on Whit's (Bazemore, teammate) car in testing that worked so well we tried on the Oakley car and it just seems to upset the whole combination. So, tomorrow we're going to go back to our normal tried-and-true combination that goes right down the race track; that's our plan, to move up in the qualifying ladder. And then, hopefully, if we get only one shot tomorrow (because of potential bad weather) we'll be ready for Sunday. (Crew chief) Mike Neff, we think, needs one more shot with our standard combination so he can get really aggressive on Sunday. In Phoenix we tried some things, Whit tried some things. We tried to put the two together and it just didn't seem to work on our combination."

ON THE NEW DODGE BODY: "The new body is sexy. We've gotten a lot of compliments. Everyone who has seen it wants to know when the new die-casts are coming out. All I can say is it's sexy. We're getting a lot of attention. It's amazing how many Mopar/Dodge fans there really are. And it's a true Hemi (engine) and a true Dodge."

-dsr-