Inside Line Promotions – HANFORD, Calif. (Sept. 21, 2021) – Dominic Scelzi earned his best finish of the season during World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series competition last Saturday at the Tom Tarlton Classic hosted by Keller Auto Speedway.
Scelzi overcame a problem to start the night and he held on during late-race woes to score a sixth-place run, which marked his second top 10 in three starts with ‘The Greatest Show on Dirt’ this season.
“I’m super happy with our speed, but disappointed with how everything played out,” he said. “It was frustrating having the speed we did and not being able to do what we thought we could with it.”
The night began with a mechanical problem that kept Scelzi from participating in hot laps.
“When we unloaded and started up the motor wasn’t running,” he said. “We changed motors and had the same issue again. That’s when we realized it had to be a fueling issue. We changed the tail tank, fuel pump and fuel system. We didn’t get to hot lap. We got one lap in qualifying and I wasn’t able to put a good lap down. We finally got it right for the heat race.”
Scelzi qualified 21st quickest, but a run from seventh to fourth place in a heat race moved him up nine positions in the A Main.
“We were good in the heat and made our way right to fourth,” he said. “First through fourth were nose to tail so I felt really good. That gave me confidence going into the feature.
“We worked our way to eighth right away in the feature. I got myself up to sixth and then the power steering went out on Lap 15. We had a line break and dump all the fluid out. I had to run the last 20 laps without power steering. It was extremely hard. I felt like I did fine until we had about 10 laps to go. At that point I struggled to hang on. The last couple of laps I fell back from fourth to sixth.”
The sixth-place finish was Scelzi’s 48th top 10 of the season.
“I honestly felt like we were a podium car,” he said. “We were fast and getting by guys the first half of the feature. We drove up through the field. If we got a bad restart and someone got by us, we’d get right back by them. I’d have loved to see how we could have finished with power steering, but it didn’t work out.”
Scelzi plans on returning to Keller Auto Speedway this Saturday for a King of the West-NARC Fujitsu Series event. He enters the race leading the championship standings.
QUICK RESULTS –
Sept. 18 – Keller Auto Speedway in Hanford, Calif. – Qualifying: 21; Heat race: 4 (7); Feature: 6 (12).
SEASON STATS –
56 races, 18 wins, 41 top fives, 48 top 10s, 52 top 15s, 53 top 20s
UP NEXT –
Saturday at Keller Auto Speedway in Hanford, Calif., with the King of the West-NARC Fujitsu Series