Giovanni Scelzi Places Second With SCCT During Debut at Placerville

Inside Line Promotions – PLACERVILLE, Calif. (April 18, 2017) – Giovanni Scelzi continues to impress in a sprint car.

Scelzi tied his career-best result of second place last Saturday during his debut at Placerville Speedway, which hosted more than 60 competitors during a Sprint Car Challenge Tour event at the bullring.

“That race was a blast,” he said. “I want to thank Brandon Hickman and Scotty Martin for their help along with my family and sponsors for their support.”

Scelzi, who drove for his family owned team for the first time this season, opened the event by qualifying fifth quickest in his group and 13 th quickest overall.

“In hot laps the track was really greasy still so I wasn’t really up to speed,” he said. “It was hard to gauge how hard I could race in the corner. I was a little timid in qualifying.”

Scelzi continued to improve each time he hit the quarter-mile track. He advanced from fifth to third place in a heat race, which locked him into the main event.

“We got rolling good and got into fourth on the start of the heat,” he said. “The third-place driver got into the curb and tipped over so that put us up to third. Me and Bobby McMahan got to racing after the restart. He snuck by me and I got back by him so we ended third.”

Not only did Scelzi make the main event, he advanced into a dash based on his qualifying performance.

“We redrew the No. 4 so we started fourth and gained a position to place third,” he said. “That started us on the outside of the third row for the main event.

“It was probably the best race track I’ve been on all year in the main event. It had a curb on the top and a bottom groove and the middle cleaned off. There were three lanes of racing. I got to fifth and rode there for a while. Then I got up to third, but fell back to sixth or seventh. The restarts were so hectic. I had a few good restarts and a few bad ones. It depended on how you came out of turn two. About 30 laps in I wasn’t working good in the middle so I went to the curb and passed Justin Sanders coming to the white and Kyle Hirst on the last lap so that was pretty exciting.”

Scelzi’s late charge to a runner-up result gives him three top fives in four races this season.