Giovanni Scelzi Scores First Sprint Car Win During 24th Career Start
Inside Line Promotions – CHICO, Calif. (May 8, 2017) – Giovanni Scelzi captured his first career feature victory last Friday during only his 24 th career winged sprint car start.
Scelzi, who was driving for Roth Motorsports, led all 30 laps of the King of Kings season opener at Keller Auto Speedway in Hanford, Calif., to achieve the feat.
“It felt like I was getting a monkey off my back,” he said. “We’ve been in position so many times to win races it feels like we should have had a few. To have Dennis and Teresa Roth there and to share it with the team felt pretty good.”
The night began with Scelzi setting quick time during qualifying. He then advanced from fourth to second place in a heat race to lock into the dash, where he pulled the No. 1 during the random redraw to start the dash on the pole.
Scelzi led the distance of the dash to score the pole position for the main event.
“Racing a 410 has made me progress 10 times quicker,” he said. “This was my first time at the track in a 360 since racing a 410 there and it felt like you weren’t even moving going back to a 360. It was way easier to hit my marks and put the car where I wanted to. We qualified two tenths faster than the field.
“The track had some grip in it, but was starting to slick off in the feature. It was tough to not know where to go as the leader. The curb in turns one and two was massive. It was easy to bike and fall off the track. I ran around the top of the race track for a while. From halfway on I went to the bottom in turns one and two.”
Scelzi maintained the top spot throughout the feature to earn the triumph. Here is a link to watch the main event: https://youtu.be/jyXKgInPIww.
The weekend concluded on Saturday at Silver Dollar Speedway for the Dave Bradway Jr. Memorial with the King of the West-NARC Fujitsu Sprint Car Series.
“I was going in there with confidence through the ceiling,” he said. “We hot lapped really well. We went out late in qualifying, which was good because the track got faster. I went through turns one and two fine, but made a mistake in turns three and four and that ruined both my laps. That put us behind the eight ball to start the night.”
Scelzi timed in 27th quickest out of 37 racers. He then placed sixth in a heat race before maneuvering from 11th to third place in the B Main. That earned a transfer into the 19th starting position in the main event.
“We were tight in the beginning and I couldn’t get the car going,” he said. “The track was rough and narrow so it was hard to get into a rhythm. There was an open red about 15 laps in and we were up to ninth or so. We tried to free the car up. Then I lost my brakes about midway through the race. I went into turn three and the brake pedal went straight to the floor. I drove off the end and backed into the fence.”
Scelzi was unable to restart the race and he was credited with a 14th-place result. Here is a link to the feature: https://youtu.be/VrB8PsOn51U.
He is scheduled to drive for Roth Motorsports this Friday at Keller Auto Speedway and Saturday at Placerville Speedway in Placerville, Calif., with the King of the West-NARC Fujitsu Sprint Car Series.
“I want to thank Dennis and Teresa Roth, Todd and the entire Roth team as well as my family and sponsors for the support,” Scelzi said. “We didn’t end last weekend the way we wanted, but it was special to get our first career sprint car win and hopefully more are on the horizon.”