Giovanni Scelzi Uses Late-Race Pass to Win Budweiser Outlaw Nationals

Inside Line Promotions – VISALIA, Calif. (July 5, 2015) – Giovanni Scelzi added another marquee title to his racing résumé on Saturday.

Scelzi made a late-race pass to claim the Budweiser Outlaw Nationals, which is one of California’s premier micro sprint events hosted by Plaza Park Raceway. It marked his second victory of the season and first since garnering a Golden Driller at the Tulsa Shootout in January.

“I feel like we’ve been chasing our tail the whole year,” he said. “We’ve had speed every race and just haven’t been able to finish. Finally we got another win.”

It capped a long weekend that began with little sleep. Scelzi, who had been in Oregon helping his brother, Dominic, during the Western Sprint Tour Speedweek, arrived at a hotel in Eugene at 3 a.m. just in time to take a cat nap before flying back to California a couple of hours later. The family arrived at Plaza Park Raceway on time to face more than two dozen top drivers during Night 1 of the Budweiser Outlaw Nationals.

Scelzi qualified eighth quickest, but he ran into bad luck when a brake caliper broke during a heat race. That relegated him to the back of the B Main, where he charged from 12th to a fifth-place result to earn a transfer into the 21st starting position for the main event.

“There were so many good guys there and the track was real rough so I was excited to get an eighth-place qualifying run to be in the hunt and then we had the problem in the heat race,” he said. “It’s disappointing because we showed speed. I knew we were fast enough to be competitive.”

Scelzi rallied from the back of the main event to post an eighth-place finish, which produced much needed momentum entering Saturday.

“It was cool to pass cars and get back in the groove since we haven’t raced much lately,” he said.

Scelzi kicked off the finale by timing in third quickest during qualifying. He then advanced from fourth to third place during a heat race to lock himself into the feature inversion, which was a zero. That lined Scelzi up on the inside of the second row for the 30-lap main event.

“The track was slick to the wall,” he said. “They did a great job on working the track.”

Scelzi spent the first half of the race battling for the runner-up position before he tracked down the leader during the final third of the feature.

“Me, Michael Faccinto and Cory Eliason were pretty much dead even running the top,” he said. “I found the bottom in turns one and two and got by Cory. Michael was running the top and I was on the bottom in turns one and two and the top in turns three and four. With about three laps to go I slid him going into turns one and two.”

Scelzi held on to the top spot during the final laps to record the triumph.

“Right at the line I was trying to make my car three lanes wide,” he said. “It’s definitely one of the better wins I’ve earned.”