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Topeka: Gary Scelzi Friday summary

Scelzi pulls off top speed of Friday qualifying for no. 5 spot TOPEKA, Kan. (May 23, 2003) -- Gary Scelzi surprised even himself with a stout run down the quarter-mile in the second round of qualifying for the O'Reilly SummerNationals at Heartland ...

Published: May 24, 2003, 8:19 PM

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Scelzi pulls off top speed of Friday qualifying for no. 5 spot

TOPEKA, Kan. (May 23, 2003) -- Gary Scelzi surprised even himself with a stout run down the quarter-mile in the second round of qualifying for the O'Reilly SummerNationals at Heartland Park Topeka, posting a 4.833-second elapsed time at a top speed for the day of 323.35 mph, good for No. 5 spot. He was on a good run in his Oakley Dodge Stratus R/T Funny Car in the first session but hazed the tires at 400 feet for a 6.156/149.08 pass

"It acted like our old hot rod," he said. "It almost made it on the first run, but only one car made it down the right lane in the first session and that was Bob Gilbertson. And even though we smoked the tires at about 400 feet we were like the second quickest in the right lane, because Gilbertson ran quicker. We didn't make a whole lot of changes. We went back up to run the left lane and really didn't get after it as hard as we thought maybe we wanted to because we had to get it down the race track. And up popped a 4.83 at 323. Everything looks good in the motor; everything looks good in the clutch. We're all pretty happy. We've got something to play with tomorrow. We're in the show nice and solid and we'll just try to repeat, run an .85 to an .80 flat tomorrow, both runs, if the weather holds out, and we'll see what we've got. It's great to have a Dodge top-speeding again."

-dsr-

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