Scelzi Can Thank Tuner For Memphis Funny Car Victory

MEMPHIS — All three Don Schumacher Racing Funny Car drivers — O’Reilly Mid-South NHRA Nationals winner Gary Scelzi, runner-up Jack Beckman and Ron Capps — are seeded in the top four for the inaugural Countdown to the Championship.
Robert Hight of John Force Racing heads the Funny Car list. Beckman is second, Capps third, and Scelzi fourth. Tony Pedregon is fifth, Memphis non-qualifier Mike Ashley is sixth. John Force is seventh. No. 8 Jim Head also did not qualify this past weekend.
Two events remain, at Dallas and Richmond, before the final four battle to the finish in the last two events.
 
• The incredibly close Funny Car final between two teammates — Scelzi won by about seven inches, or one-thousandth of a second  — was a testament to the tuning abilities of co-crew chiefs Todd Okuhara and Phil Shuler. Both are responsible for Scelzi’s Mopar/Oakley Dodge Charger and Beckman’s Mail Terminal Services Charger. Scelzi is 3-3 in final rounds this season.
Scelzi said he is adapting to Okuhara and Schuler but said he always will have a special spot in his heart for Mike Neff, who recently left Schumacher Racing to drive the fourth John Force Racing Ford Mustang next year.
“I really miss Mike Neff beating on that hood,” Scelzi said. “Mike and I were very close, and Mike got me a championship and got me 10 wins...and that’s special. And that meaning is never going to go away. But Todd Okuhara took over the helm and took this crew and changed everything on that race car. We made some changes. We think it’s for the better, and right now it’s starting to pay dividends. Todd has made some big changes and the car runs really hard in the middle.”

• The entire U.S. Army team — point-leader Tony Schumacher in Top Fuel and Pro Stock Motorcycle riders Angelle Sampey and Antron Brown — lost in the first round. It was only the second time this season that has happened but the second time in four races. The other event was Aug. 12 at Brainerd, Minn.  
For Schumacher, a barrel valve bust broke early in his run against Doug Foley. “The barrel valve opens when I hit the throttle, and it produces the fuel flow,” he said. “When it broke, that obviously shut off the fuel and then the burst panels blew out. All I could I do at that point was cruise on through to the finish line.” The No. 1 qualifier took solace in keeping the point lead he assumed at Indianapolis in the previous race.
Brown lost a chain from his Suzuki just past the 60-foot mark as he raced Eddie Krawiec, and Sampey simply left the starting line far later than opponent Hector Arana.

• With both Schumacher and Larry Dixon losing in the first round, Rod Fuller moved into second place in the NHRA Countdown to the Championship Top Fuel standings.
He beat Cory McClenathan, but his David Powers-owned Caterpillar Dragster smoked the tires against Doug Foley in the next round. “We were very fortunate that both Schumacher and Dixon went out early. We really struggled all weekend and never could get our finger on it. We’re going to test on Monday and get our car figured out for Dallas,” he said, referring to this weekend’s O’Reilly Fall Nationals at the Texas Motorplex at Ennis, Texas.
“Some of our stuff is worn out and we had to cycle in some new parts and they just didn’t respond the same. Our morale is still good. Our goal is to be No. 1, but we just need to stay in the top four.”

• For much of the past two years, Funny Car veteran Del Worsham has been the victim of incredibly narrow losses and misses on race day and during qualifying. So qualifying 15th was a real treat for the Checker Schucks Kragen Chevy Impala driver. But he didn’t want to put his slight momentum up against that of his first-round opponent, Ashley Force.
“She qualified No. 2 at Indy, running great, and she qualified No. 2 here, so we knew she had one of those bad hot rods her dad is always talking about,” Worsham said. “On top of that, she was on Jay Leno on Monday night, and she was named America’s Hottest Athlete about a week ago. How much momentum can one driver have? It would have been the perfect story for her to cap it off with a win here, so we knew we had a major test on our hands.”
In their match-up, Force ran a 4.865-second elapsed time, fourth-quickest of the round, but Worsham eliminated her with a 4.848. He experienced tire spin at about half-track in the quarterfinals, one of winner Gary Scelzi’s vanquished.
 
• A spider caused a big problem Friday afternoon for Funny Car driver Jerry Toliver and his Rockstar Energy/AutoZone Toyota Solara. The spider, which turned out to be a black widow spider, crawled onto one of the starting line timing lights. The timer didn’t begin when Toliver left the starting line but kicked in at the 330-foot mark. Toliver’s elapsed time was 3.80 seconds — and was disallowed. He made the field on the second try Friday and started Sunday from the No. 12 position. Then he lost in the first round to eventual runner-up Jack Beckman.
 
• Top Fuel contenders had a tough weekend. Joining Schumacher and Dixon in exiting in the first round was fellow top-eight driver Bob Vandergriff.  Still in the hunt but losing in round two were Rod Fuller and J.R. Todd.
Pro Stock’s top eight had some round one attrition, too. Defeated in their first runs were Kurt Johnson, Jason Line and Allen Johnson. Larry Morgan and Warren Johnson followed with quarterfinal defeats.

• Pro Stock’s Max Naylor earned his second-straight No. 1 qualifier position. It also was the second of his career. He did it in his Jagermeister Dodge Stratus with a track elapsed-time record of 6.594 seconds at 207.37 mph.