Scelzi Wins Trio of Heat Races, Advances into Tough Trophy Cup Main Event

Inside Line Promotions – TULARE, Calif. (Oct. 21, 2014) – Dominic Scelzi put together another standout performance at the Trophy Cup last weekend despite facing adversity during the 21st edition of the premier event at Thunderbowl Raceway.

“I won all three heat races I ran, which was pretty cool,” he said. “Out of the 90 cars there we were pretty happy with our run. We passed cars every time we went on the race track and we raced every bit as good as the best cars out there. I want to thank the Finley family for loaning us an engine so we could compete and Peter Murphy and Brian Sundby for their help with the car.”

Scelzi opened the weekend last Thursday by qualifying 25th quickest, which lined him up on the outside of the front row for his heat race. He led the distance of the 10-lap race to lock his Roth Motorsports backed entry into the main event.

“I started 21st in the feature and I drove up to seventh,” he said. “At one point I squeezed myself between a car and the wall and I ended up breaking the right rear shock.”

The right rear tire rubbed against the broken shock for several laps before going flat, which forced Scelzi to the pits with a handful of laps remaining and gave him a 22nd-place result.

His team returned to Thunderbowl Raceway on Friday, when the track was extremely tricky during qualifying. Scelzi hit a rut during his qualifying attempt, but was able to save the car en route to timing in 30th quickest.

That started him on the pole of a heat race, which he won. However, only the top two drivers in points from each heat locked into the main event so he was relegated to the C Main.

Scelzi found a rhythm running the cushion in that race as he charged from sixth to win and transfer to the back of the B Main. He then rallied from 22 nd to 13th before the track took rubber midway through the consolation race, which didn’t showcase much passing in the closing laps.

“I felt like the motor just didn’t have as much power as the night before,” he said. “The car was extremely fast, just qualifying was the biggest thing. We did everything with the racing. We just didn’t qualify very well.”

Scelzi won his heat race to kick off Saturday’s action, but it didn’t give him many points and lined him up on the outside of the sixth row of the B Main. He quickly began picking up positions before another car spun in front of him. After making contact with the sliding car, Scelzi was able to keep rolling.

“There were tons and tons of really good race cars in the B Main,” he said. “I was fortunate to survive that early incident and get up to the fourth spot with five laps to go. Then I got a bad restart and went to the bottom of turns one and two. I fell back to sixth and then I drove back up to fifth. The red came out with one to go. We went green and I was just able to squeak around another driver. He went low on the last corner, we banged wheels and I was able to get by him.”

Scelzi made the last-corner, last-lap pass for the fourth-and-final transfer position by less than 15 hundredths of a second.

The team scrambled to fix the front end damage during a short break before the 50-lap main event, which was fully inverted. That lined Scelzi up on the outside of the front row.

“We got a really good start and I took the lead,” he said. “I put down the fastest lap of the main event. We were getting faster and faster as the track slicked off. The car was getting better and better every lap. Unfortunately we had a motor let go.”

Despite the damaged front end Scelzi led the first eight laps of the race before he pulled into the infield because of the mechanical issue.

He will be off this weekend before wrapping up his season on Nov. 1 at Stockton Dirt Track in Stockton, Calif., for the 31st annual Tribute to Gary Patterson with the King of the West 410 Sprint Car Series. He ranks eighth in the championship standings.