Scelzi Successful at 30th annual Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals

Inside Line Promotions – TULSA, Okla. (Jan. 19, 2016) – Dominic Scelzi enjoyed another successful outing at the premier midget event last weekend.

Scelzi guided a Loyet Motorsports entry to a 15th-place result in a C Main after being involved in a late crash on Saturday during the 30 th annual Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals Presented by General Tire, which featured a record 336 drivers at Tulsa Expo Raceway.

“I want to thank everyone at Loyet Motorsports for the tremendous opportunity,” he said. “We didn’t get the result we wanted, but it certainly wasn’t anything to put our heads down about. I had a blast all week and hope for another opportunity with them.”

The week began for Scelzi on Thursday when he powered from seventh to second place during a heat race on the quarter-mile oval.

“We had a great heat race,” he said. “We were very fortunate with our heat race draw. It was a good time for me to get comfortable with the race car. To go from seventh to second was a good points result for us.”

That locked Scelzi into the fifth starting position in a qualifier.

“As the track widened out we seemed to struggle getting comfortable and finding the feel that I was looking for,” he said. “I was tight on the entry (into the corners) and free on the exit.”

Scelzi finished where he started, which was good enough to lock him into the 14th starting position for the 25-lap feature.

“In the main event for a while it seemed like we could maneuver forward and then we’d lose some positions,” he said. “I got to about 10th and was as low as 17th at one point. It was how the yellows and restarts worked. We were pretty much right in the middle. Finishing 14th isn’t what we hoped for and it definitely wasn’t my goal, but that set us up for a good position on Saturday.”

Scelzi’s 14th-place result lined him up on the inside of the fourth row in a C Main during Saturday’s finale, which was broadcast live on MavTV.

“We fell back to around 10th and as we were racing forward a car on the outside broke loose and half spun down the track,” he said. “It got into our front end. That spun me out with about two laps to go and ended our run at transferring into the B Main. I think we would have ended up transferring because in the next corner the drivers running fourth, fifth and sixth crashed. The way things were going in front of me I had a shot at earning a transfer.”

Scelzi was battling inside the top 10 when the incident occurred, ending his run with the 15th-place finish.

He will return to action in his winged sprint car March 3-4 at The Dirt Track at Las Vegas in Las Vegas with the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series.