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"It's crunch time in the race for the Winston championship. It's really important to be on our game because opportunities are running out." -- Gary Scelzi

One year ago, Gary Scelzi entered the Revell Nationals holding a 135-point advantage over second-place Cory McClenathan in the NHRA Winston Top Fuel standings. Scelzi went on to win the Winston championship by 177 points over McClenathan.

This year, the tables are turned. Scelzi enters the Revell Nationals in second place in the NHRA Winston Top Fuel standings trailing points leader McClenathan by 11 points and leading third-place Joe Amato by 74 points with three races remaining on the road to the NHRA Winston championship.

But even though Scelzi lost to Cory Mac in round two of the Parts America Nationals in Topeka, Scelzi has every reason to be confident of a strong finish, especially the way his Alan Johnson-owned Team Winston dragster is running.

"The Team Winston Top Fuel dragster is haulin' the mail," said Scelzi, who was the No. 1 qualifier in Topeka and set new career-best speed of 322.69 mph. "We ran some big speeds at Topeka when I ran the fastest speed of my life and Alan's career. We have a very good race car. At Topeka, the driver missed and lost by seven thousandths of a second. That night, Cory was a better man.

"We still don't know who's going to win the Winston championship, but Team Winston is confident. We feel good about ourselves and our race car. We're very excited about going to Ennis because it's another super track. We feel we have some serious power. So it's off to Dallas with the big bats loaded, and hopefully luck will be on our side.

"It's crunch time in the race for the Winston championship. It's really important to be on our game because opportunities are running out. The good things is there's no change in our game plan. We've been in this spot before, and we're up for any challenge that we meet."