Scelzi Drives to Top 10 During David Tarter Memorial After Graduating in Morning

Inside Line Promotions – CHICO, Calif. (June 11, 2015) – Dominic Scelzi had a busy day last Saturday, which he began as one of four people selected to speak during his high school graduation.

He then hopped on a plane thanks to the help of a family friend and flew north to Chico to tackle the 3rd annual David Tarter Memorial with the King of the West 410 Sprint Car Series at Silver Dollar Speedway.

“It was a huge honor to be one of the select few to speak and I’m very grateful of my family for supporting me,” he said. “It was a great day and I’m glad I was able to cap it by racing. We started the night in qualifying by going out at a good time. We were just a little tight and the car got upset in turns three and four.”

Scelzi timed in 11th quickest during qualifying, which lined him up on the outside of the front row of a heat race in his Roth Motorsports backed sprint car.

“I got a bad start and fell back to third,” he said. “I started working the bottom in turns one and two. I was able to get back to the leader and ended up passing him on the outside in turns three and four.”

Scelzi’s heat race victory locked him into the dash, where he pulled the highest number – eight – to start on the outside of the fourth row.

“It seemed like there were a lot of incidents and we just kept our nose clean,” he said. “We kept ourselves out of trouble.”

Scelzi maneuvered from eighth to third place during the dash to line up on the inside of the second row for the main event.

“We got going pretty good in the beginning,” he said. “The top was better, but there were several guys working the bottom. In the beginning I was good at both. As the race went on we couldn’t get rotated on the top. We probably just needed to be a bit looser that way we could race cars harder than we did.”

Scelzi maintained a top 10 until he was bumped off the track, which cost him approximately a half dozen positions. However, he rebounded in the closing laps to post an eighth-place result.

“A top 10 is never a bad thing, but for our situation I don’t think it’s a great thing,” he said. “Our goal has to been to win races and win the championship. We don’t want to see the guys ahead of us (in the standings) beat us. All in all it was a decent night, but we need to get back to strong qualifying runs and get back in the top three and top five and hopefully knock off a win soon.”

Scelzi, who ranks third in the championship standings only seven points out of the lead, will return to action this Friday at Keller Auto Speedway in Hanford, Calif., before Saturday’s King of the West event at Stockton Dirt Track in Stockton, Calif.