Inside Line Promotions – BRANDON, S.D. (May 11, 2021) – Dominic Scelzi produced a pair of podium performances last weekend, securing a third-place finish in California while piloting his family car and a runner-up result in South Dakota during his first appearance with Lunstra Motorsports.Scelzi had originally planned on only racing on Friday at Ocean Speedway in Watsonville, Calif., where he had recorded a top-six result during each of two previous races this year. That trend continued Friday as he qualified ninth quickest before winning a heat race to make the dash. “We didn’t qualify very good, but we won the heat race and that put us in the dash,” he said. “We advanced from third to second and that started us on the front row of the feature. We got the jump and led the first half of the race. We got balled up in traffic and I struggled to get around cars as well as I needed to so we fell to second. We had a restart with about 10 laps to go and I got back by (Justin) Sanders for the lead, but I hit the cushion and he got back by me. I hit the cushion again and fell to third. I got back to second and caught Justin with three or four laps to go, but I got over the cushion again and fell to third. That’s where we finished. It was a back-and-forth race.”The third-place outing was Scelzi’s 12th top five of the season.Meanwhile an opportunity presented itself for Scelzi to fly to the Midwest for the Huset’s Speedway Mother’s Day Opener on Sunday.”It was a last-minute deal,” he said. “I got a call from Dave Lunstra at 5:30 on Thursday afternoon and we decided we were going to make it happen. We flew in there on Sunday and had all kinds of issues on the way. We barely made it in time. I got my pit pass and walked to the infield as the drivers meeting started.”The car felt great and we were third in hot laps, but we had a mishap in qualifying and ran out of fuel on the first lap so we weren’t able to get a true time. That was a bummer. We drove from seventh to fifth in the heat race and that started me 14th in the feature.”Scelzi and the team overcame the early woes by hustling from 14 th to second in the main event.”In the heat race when we did get clear we ran the fastest lap by two tenths so that gave me a lot of confidence entering the feature,” he said. “I was really happy with our speed. We made it to third with 10 laps to go. I didn’t want that late yellow. We were right there on top of first and second when the yellow came out as the leader got together with a car. That put me in second, but I felt like we had a better shot to win in traffic. Austin (McCarl) got a better restart than us and we ran second. I’m not upset with that finish though as we ran second from 14th in a car we hadn’t been in before.”Huset’s is one of my favorite tracks and it’s a place I really want to win at. I want to thank Dave Lunstra and the Lunstra Family for allowing me to race and Mark Dobmeier and his team for allowing us to borrow an engine. Jimmy Carr flew back there on Saturday and put everything together. There’s a lot of people who worked hard to make it happen so I’m grateful to all of them. Hopefully we can do it again.”Scelzi will be back with his family team this weekend during the Peter Murphy Classic, which runs Friday at Keller Auto Speedway in Hanford, Calif., and Saturday at Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, Calif.QUICK RESULTS –May 7 – Ocean Speedway in Watsonville, Calif. – Qualifying: 9; Heat race: 1 (2); Dash: 2 (3); Feature: 3 (2).May 9 – Huset’s Speedway in Brandon, S.D. – Qualifying: 19; Heat race: 5 (7); Feature: 2 (14).SEASON STATS –18 races, 5 wins, 13 top fives, 17 top 10s, 17 top 15s, 17 top 20sUP NEXT –Friday at Keller Auto Speedway in Hanford, Calif., and Saturday at Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, Calif., during the Peter Murphy Classic with the King of the West-NARC Fujitsu Series and Spr |
