Inside Line Promotions – BRANDON, S.D. (Aug. 4, 2020) – Dominic Scelzi posted a pair of top-five finishes last weekend during two of the biggest-paying races of the season under the Ollie’s Bargain Outlet All Star Circuit of Champions presented by Mobil 1 banner.
Scelzi finished fourth on Thursday at Plymouth Dirt Track in Plymouth, Wis., during the $26,000-to-win Rayce Rudeen Foundation Race and he placed second on Sunday at Huset’s Speedway during the $20,000-to-win C & B Operations Grand Reopening presented by Folkens Brothers Trucking. Both nights were his debut at each track and he now has seven top fives with the All Stars this year, which is more than the combined number of top-10 results in his career with the All Stars entering this year.
“It was an extremely good weekend,” he said. “I feel like since we’ve switched cars we’ve been on the right track and that showed this weekend. We qualified good every night and made the heat race inversion every night. We raced really good three of the four nights. It was just a really good four-day stretch.”
Scelzi qualified third quickest out of the 41 drivers on Thursday at Plymouth Dirt Track. He then placed third in a heat race and second in a dash to garner the third starting position in the main event.
“We were really good,” he said. “I think we could have run second through fourth, which is where we ultimately finished. We had good speed and it was awesome to get another top five with the All Stars.”
Scelzi ventured to 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Iowa, on Friday. He qualified fourth quickest out of 27 drivers. A third-place outing in a heat race locked him into the dash. He placed seventh in the race before ending the night with an eighth-place run in the A Main.
“It was pretty hard to pass all night,” he said. “The track was really wet. It widened up a bit in the feature, but was still hard to pass. I ran sixth for a lot of the race and made a mistake on a restart, which dropped me to seventh. Then I got caught in traffic trying to get to sixth and we placed eighth.”
Knoxville Raceway in Knoxville, Iowa, hosted an All Star show on Saturday. Scelzi timed in 21st quickest overall, finished second in a heat race and capped the night with a 14th-place showing in the main event.
“When we went out in qualifying I felt like we had a decent lap,” he said. “The inside row was taking off really well in the heats. We lost the start and that cost us a lot of positions in the feature. I do think if we started up front we could have run there. We ran around 10th to 12th for the majority of the feature, but we had a car spin in front of us going into turn three. We made contact and I half spun and went through the infield and that moved us back to 14th.”
The weekend concluded on Sunday at Huset’s Speedway, where Scelzi made the most of his debut. He qualified 14thquickest out of 30-plus racers. A heat race win and runner-up result in a dash lined Scelzi up third for the feature.
“In the dash we had a good dog fight with Kerry Madsen,” he said. “That gave me a lot of confidence going into the feature. We were right there in the top three all race long. Once we got back by Kerry for second the final time Cory (Eliason) was out there by a straightway. We were able to reel him in, but traffic didn’t fall my way so we finished second. It was a fun race and a great track.”
Scelzi will take his momentum into a busy weekend. He will compete on Thursday and Saturday at Knoxville Raceway during the 30th annual My Place Hotels 360 Knoxville Nationals presented by Great Southern Bank. On Sunday the team heads to Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa, Iowa, for the Sage Fruit Ultimate Challenge presented by Searsboro Telephone Co. with the Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour. The Sage Fruit Front Row Challenge presented by Musco Lighting is Monday at Southern Iowa Speedway.