One on one moment

“There is no forgiving.”
“It’s not as pretty as it looks.”

Story and photos by Dwight Drum
Web work by Gary Larsen

Gary Scelzi was Zoomster.com’s first four wheel driver interview about five years ago when Scelzi was the Top Fuel dragster pilot for Winston. Much has changed since then. Zoomster has gone on to several hundred NHRA and NASCAR interviews. Winston has moved out of motorsports and Scelzi has moved into a Funny Car with The HEMI Oakley Dodge for Don Schumacher Racing. What doesn’t change is Scelzi’s swift and concise thoughts when answering my questions. What has changed is the Funny Car world speed records set by Scelzi. This time we met with Scelzi during a practice session near The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Look forward with us to more speed and fast words.

Dwight asked Gary Scelzi:

We’re going to make the new hit in a new car and we’ve got another new car too. We are going to try some different things with the combination we ran at the end of the year at Pomona, the set-back supercharger and all that stuff. We feel like we’ve got a big jump on testing by doing that last year since we were out of the points race. Just try to have a consistent fact racecar that doesn’t smoke the tires as easy as it did last year. That’s our whole goal right now.”

I’ve never really had a bad circumstance with the media. I think all of them are familiar with drag racing. They know what we do. It’s no different than NASCAR. We do our stuff on the road, a lot of travel and a lot of time away from home and your family. It’s not the glamorous life like everybody thinks. Some of the media may miss some of that. It’s not as pretty as it looks.“

“I probably miss the people and the excitement. No second chances. You go up there. You stage your car. You hit the gas and you get a win light then you get to go on. If you don’t, there’s no provisional, no owners points, nothing to save you. You’ve got to be on it. There is no forgiving.

“NHRA has always had a ladder and I think that NHRA is fair racing. NASCAR is worried too much about money and instead of the guy who is most consistent. I’m sorry if the guy who won the championship only won one race all year. If you want to do something like that, give the guy who wins an extra 50 points or 100 points. Don’t change the whole system and take everybody out of it that doesn’t have a shot. You never know what can happen in the last 10 races or whatever their rule is.”

“I think the same thing ought to be done in NHRA, reward them a little more for winning. I think we should make Indy a point and half plus race. Make Indy what it’s supposed to be, the biggest drag race of the year.

“I’ve got several favorite moments and it’s hard to pick. Probably my first national event I won in my alcohol dragster in the 1985 finals. That’s probably the best one. Winning my first world champion with Allen Johnson was definitely a highlight. Winning my first race in Top Fuel and winning my first race in Funny car in Sonoma last year too. That was a pretty big moment for me.”

“We set the speed record twice in Funny car. We’ve got the five fastest runs in history in Funny car. We’re going to try to make the ET’s the quickest as well as the fastest. Have a consistent car and make it quicker. That’s what wins drag races.