Scelzi Slowed by Rough Luck During Breakout Performance at Chili Bowl
Inside Line Promotions – TULSA, Okla. (Jan. 19, 2015) – Dominic Scelzi would swallow a horseshoe right now to find an ounce of luck.
Unfortunately, Scelzi was derailed by bad last week during a strong outing at the 29th annual Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals. Scelzi, who was driving for Cole Wood Racing, was in the midst of a breakout performance out of a record of more than 325 drivers at the premier midget event when a piece of dirt undid everything.
“I sound like a broken record,” he said. “On Tuesday night we had the fastest car on the race track. It was unbelievable. I couldn’t do anything wrong. It was just perfect and then we ran into bad luck.”
Scelzi kicked off the event on Tuesday by charging from fifth to second place in his heat race and maneuvering from fifth to third place in a qualifier, which locked him into the 30-lap feature starting eighth.
“We drove up to fifth and on a restart I got tight and got over the cushion,” he said. “I fell back to seventh or eighth and drove back up into the top five. The yellow comes out and I’m coasting around trying to figure out how I can get in the top three and they told me to go in to the work area because I had a tire going flat. I couldn’t feel it. I guess when you have a flat tire they black flag you.”
Scelzi was forced into the work area and the race resumed without him being able to change the tire that was low on air.
“It turns out the left rear bleeder hose was ripped out by a dirt clod,” he said.
That relegated Scelzi to a D Main during Saturday’s finale.
“The track was really, really slick with a huge cushion,” he said. “It was about eight or nine inches tall. A lot of the guys who went up there went backwards. I was really tight and I couldn’t get my car freed up to run the top. I was running seventh on the last restart. I just decided I was going to sail it in up top.”
The move worked as Scelzi used the top groove to propel himself to a third-place finish, which transferred him into the back of a C Main. He then rallied from 17th to eighth to close the event.
“In the C Main I just went everywhere,” he said. “The car was so fast. I was passing two or three cars a lap. Basically wherever they weren’t, I was driving it as fast and hard as I could. We didn’t get a yellow until about four laps to go. I got it up to eighth and that was as much time as I had.
“It gave me a ton of confidence going there and running one of the best cars setup-wise I have driven. I can’t thank Tim Clauson enough for working on the cars and Cole Wood Racing for the opportunity.”
Scelzi will make his season debut in a sprint car March 4-5 at The Dirt Track at Las Vegas in Las Vegas for the FVP Outlaw Showdown with the World of Outlaws STP Sprint Car Series.