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Photo by Bob Frye

The good news for Gary Scelzi at his sponsor's race, the Winston Invitational, was that he was the No. 1 qualifier. On his final qualifying pass, he covered the quarter-mile in 4.58 seconds to set the track elapsed-time record for Rockingham Dragway. The better news was that his low-qualifying run not only moved him into the No. 1 spot, but into the field. Entering his final qualifying attempt, Scelzi was not in the eight-car Winston Invitational field.

The bad news came the next day, when he lost to Bob Vandergriff in the first round.

"Our results at the Winston Invitational were definitely not what we hoped for, especially since we were the No. 1 qualifier," said Scelzi, currently eighth in the NHRA Winston Top Fuel standings, 103 points behind leader Cory McClenathan. "We had hoped that we were closer to getting the handle on this car. Instead, we got hit over the head, but things are not all bad at Team Winston. Even though we lost in the first round, the car did not smoke the tires, but it did shake them. That means we're getting closer to solving the problems that have plagued us all season."

Scelzi hopes that his turnaround will come at the Fram Nationals, where last year he was runner-up in his first Pro race at Atlanta Dragway. Last year, he was the No. 1 qualifier with a 4.669 and defeated Doug Herbert, Cory McClenathan, and Tony Schumacher before losing to Kenny Bernstein in the finals.

"Hopefully in Atlanta, the weather won't bite us, and our hero and ring leader, Alan Johnson, will take advantage of four rounds of qualifying to return Team Winston to the level of consistency we enjoyed last year," he said. "I think Team Winston is definitely making progress towards that goal. Our car seems to be showing flashes of brilliance, so hopefully we can turn those flashes into some solid performances. We made it to the finals at Atlanta last year, so we need to go back and finish the task this year"