Scelzi Charges into Top Five – Twice – Before Bad Luck Strikes at Stockton

Inside Line Promotions – STOCKTON, Calif. (May 29, 2017) – Dominic Scelzi felt like he had a race-winning sprint car last Saturday at Stockton Dirt Track.

Scelzi, who has been victorious at the track twice during his career, kicked off the Sprint Car Challenge Tour by qualifying second quickest in his group and 13th overall out of 39 competitors while driving for Nick McColloch.

“I felt like my laps were really, really good and the car was perfect so I was surprised we were 13th quickest overall,” Scelzi said. “I thought we’d be in the top five.”

Scelzi advanced from third to second place during a heat race to lock into the dash.

“We fell back to fourth on the start because the outside row took off better,” he said. “We ran the third-place driver down and got by him. We ran second place down and the caution came out. I got around Buddy Kofoid with three or four laps to go to finish second, which put us in the dash.”

Unfortunately, Scelzi drew the No. 8 during the dash redraw to start the race on the outside of the fourth row.

“We got up to fifth in a lap, but we had made some changes to the car,” he said. “We had a really good start and everyone was bottled up so we were able to pass early, but as the race went on they got back by us. We made different changes for the main event and the car was absolutely perfect.”

Scelzi, who placed eighth in the dash to start the main event eighth, wasted no time moving forward once the green flag was waved to open the A Main.

“On Lap 1 we were up to sixth and all over fifth,” he said. “I was going under fifth place and we cut a right rear tire. We went to the work area, replaced the tire and restarted 22nd. The track was super slick. You could run the bottom or the top. We focused around the top. With about six laps to go we were back into the fifth position. You could have thrown a blanket over third and fourth right in front of me.”

Scelzi was in contention for a podium and possibly more when mechanical problems with three laps remaining sent him to the pits early. He was credited with a 15th-place result.

“I’m taking it as a positive,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of stuff not go our way this year, but it gives me a lot of confidence to move forward like we did.”