Inside Line Promotions – CHICO, Calif. (May 3, 2022) – Dominic Scelzi achieved a pair of feats last weekend during two nights of competition at Silver Dollar Speedway.
Scelzi captured his 50th career winged sprint car triumph on Friday during the Brownell/Herseth Classic before using a third-place result on Saturday in the David Tarter Memorial to claim the lead in the King of the West-NARC Fujitsu Series championship standings.
“It’s pretty neat to get win No. 50,” he said. “It took a long time, 10 years and a few months. I’m so excited with the speed that we have. We’ve been extremely consistent. We don’t have as many wins at this point as we did last year, but we have the consistency. That’s every bit as important as being able to win races. The next big milestone is 75 and then 100 wins. I think we’re on track to be there a lot faster than how long it took to get to 50 wins.”
Scelzi opened Friday by qualifying eighth quickest. He then won a heat race from the outside of the front row before capturing both the dash and feature from the pole position.
“We started on the outside and got a good start as we led every lap of the heat race,” he said. “We led the dash throughout to get the pole for the feature. It was about as treacherous as I’ve seen a curb. We had a good pace early. As the curb got bigger we moved down the track. We had a restart and Corey Day was on the inside of me. He slid me into turn one. Then he slid himself into turn three and I ran the bottom to get back by him. From that point on we went unchallenged to get the win. That’s back-to-back Brownell/Herseth Classic wins, which is really neat.”
The team returned to the oval on Saturday for the second KWS/NARC event of the season. Scelzi timed in 14th quickest. A heat race win locked him into the 10th starting position in the A Main.
“With qualifying in the grease it made it tough,” he said. “We did what we needed to do in the heat to win. We missed the dash and started 10 th in the feature, but I wasn’t crazy worried because last year at that race we went from 15th to the lead and lost it on a green-white-checkered finish. On Saturday I had a terrible first start. The outside row biked up against the cushion and I had to check up. That cost me a few spots. I didn’t get back to 10th until six or seven laps in. As the race went on we made our way forward. We ran second down from a straightaway and got to him, but just couldn’t get by him. On nights we don’t win we want to get the best possible finish, which is critical to defend our series championship. We did that on Saturday.”
The third-place run gives Scelzi a four-point lead in the championship standings.
Scelzi plans to take this weekend off before returning to action May 13 at Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, Calif., and May 14 at Keller Auto Speedway in Hanford, Calif., during the Peter Murphy Classic with the King of the West-NARC Fujitsu Series and Sprint Car Challenge Tour.
QUICK RESULTS –
April 29 – Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico, Calif. – Qualifying: 8; Heat race: 1 (2); Dash: 1 (1); Feature: 1 (1).
April 30 – Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico, Calif. – Qualifying: 14; Heat race: 1 (1); Feature: 3 (10).
SEASON STATS –
15 races, 1 win, 7 top fives, 9 top 10s, 12 top 15s, 12 top 20s
UP NEXT –
May 13 at Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, Calif., and May 14 at Keller Auto Speedway in Hanford, Calif., for the Peter Murphy Classic with the King of the West-NARC Fujitsu Series and Sprint Car Challenge Tour