Giovanni Scelzi Surpasses Jeff Gordon’s Record for Youngest Driver to Make Knoxville Nationals A Main

Inside Line Promotions – KNOXVILLE, Iowa (Aug. 14, 2018) – Giovanni Scelzi continues to capture attention as he became the youngest driver to earn a starting spot into the famed Knoxville Nationals last weekend.

The 16-year-old bested the previous mark by Jeff Gordon, who had recently turned 18-years-old when he set the record in 1989.

“It’s the hardest race of the year to make and the biggest race,” Scelzi said. “It blew away expectations for me. You try to go into every race with the same mindset, but at the Knoxville Nationals you can’t treat it the same because the best drivers in the world are there. There’s not a tougher race in the world. To lock in and be one of the top 16, it was cool to be a part of. I wanted to run last year at Knoxville and the age thing didn’t let me. To beat Jeff Gordon’s record, which stood for 29 years, was really cool.”

Scelzi kicked off the 58th annual 5-Hour Energy Knoxville Nationals presented by Casey’s General Stores at Knoxville Raceway last Wednesday by qualifying 11th quickest out of more than 40 drivers. He then guided the Bernie Stuebgen owned sprint car from sixth to third place in a heat race to lock into the main event.

“It’s so hard because I feel like you can qualify too good,” Scelzi said. “If you qualify toward the front you’ll start eighth in a heat and sometimes you can’t make it out of there. I think we timed into a great spot. We were good in the heat and made it up to third. The feature was our highlight of the week. We got to third and challenged for second. I made a move that didn’t work out and fell to fourth, but we did what we needed to do to lock into Saturday’s night.”

Scelzi ran inside the top five throughout his preliminary night main event before finishing fourth. Here is a link to watch the race: https://youtu.be/TEDcNG2bimo.

Once preliminary night points were tabulated Scelzi ranked ninth out of more than 90 competitors, which lined him up on the inside of the fifth row for Saturday’s 50-lap A Main.

“I had a bad first corner and fell to 13th or so,” he said. “That’s where I ran the whole race. It’s difficult to get around that place. The goal was to not get lapped the first 25 laps and then go from there. I didn’t get lapped until the end. We would love to have a better result, but to finish 14th out of 90-plus drivers and it being my first time at the event is pretty neat.”

Scelzi’s 14th-place finish also earned him the Knoxville Nationals Rookie of the Year Award, which is something his older brother, Dominic, accomplished last year.

Giovanni Scelzi began last week competing at Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa, Iowa. He set quick time out of 33 cars on Monday during the Sage Fruit Front Row Challenge presented by Musco Lighting. Scelzi then advanced from sixth to third place in a heat race before finishing fourth in the final round of the King of the Hill. He spent the A Main inside the top five before finishing fifth. Here is a link to watch the main event: https://youtu.be/VbAJUYQoD_8.

“Never being there and going quick time against such a great group of cars was a cool deal,” he said. “If you look at the guys in front of me in the feature, they are guys who’ve won a lot of races. You learn every time you’re around them so it was a great learning experience and cool being competitive.”

A mechanical problem on Tuesday during the Sage Fruit Ultimate ASCS Challenge presented by Searsboro Telephone Company main event resulted in a DNF.

Also, Scelzi finished Iowa Speedweeks ranked second in the Jesse Hockett Mr. Sprint Car Award standings for his performance throughout the week and a half of action.