Gary Scelzi Wins One for Blaine Johnson, and One for Himself

When Gary Scelzi sat in the Team Winston top-fuel dragster for the start of the 1997 National Hot Rod Assn. season, he was a surrogate driver for the late Blaine Johnson.

Alan Johnson, Blaine’s older brother and crew chief, was determined to continue the family’s quest for the ultimate goal in drag racing that had been cut short by the death of his brother in a racing accident in Indianapolis the previous season. Blaine had been leading the top-fuel standings when he was killed.

After the accident, Alan worked with some other drivers, but the dream of winning a championship for Blaine and the Johnson family burned in his soul.

Kenny Bernstein, who had won the ’96 title, presented the championship trophy to the Johnson family--Alan, father Everett, mother Agnes, Blaine’s widow Kym and son Tyler--in an emotional moment at the awards dinner.

The gesture was appreciated by Alan, who decided to regroup his team and come back in 1997.

He could have picked nearly any driver in the NHRA but he chose Scelzi, who had never driven a top-fuel dragster. Scelzi, like Blaine Johnson a few years earlier, had been a top-alcohol driver, going from a car with 2,500 horsepower to one with close to 6,000 horsepower was a major transition.

“When Alan called, asking me if I would drive his dragster, I was so shocked that I called back later and asked him if I was dreaming,” Scelzi said. “He said, no, he had really called, so I accepted.

“I had always wanted to drive a top-fuel car, but with my business in Fresno growing, I had given up the thought.”

With Johnson calling the shots, Scelzi had remarkable success and the team led from the first event to win the Winston series championship.

At the NHRA awards banquet, Alan held the trophy high above his head and proclaimed, “This one is for Blaine.” Scelzi echoed the thought.

Last year, at the start of the season, the Scelzi-Johnson mystique appeared over. At midseason, they trailed Cory McClenathan and Joe Amato by more than 100 points.

“At the end of ‘97, we just felt tapped out, emotionally and physically,” said Scelzi, 38. “It took us half the year restarting ourselves.”

But what a restart it was. After failing to win in the first 10 events, Scelzi broke through at Madison, Ill., when he sidelined Amato in the first round and Bernstein in the finals. Scelzi moved past McClenathan in the standings at Maple Grove, Pa., where he won his third in a row.

Once ahead, he turned it up another notch, setting an NHRA elapsed-time record of 4.525 seconds at Dallas and a national speed record of 326.44 mph--the first dragster over 325--at Houston.

His six wins, all in the second half of the season, propelled the Johnson car to its second straight championship, ahead of perennial runner-up McClenathan, who also had six wins.

So, Scelzi, who had won one for Blaine in ‘97, had come back to win one for himself in ’98. The Johnson family influence remained strong, however, with Alan crewing the car, Everett making team arrangements, Agnes paying the bills, and Tyler sometimes tagging along with his junior dragster painted in the same colors as Scelzi’s.

Scelzi even kept the picture of Blaine taped to the inside of his cockpit, with one of his baby son, Dominic, on the opposite side. Dominic was born last May 2.

But the atmosphere was different. Scelzi has taken his place on the highest level of drag racing. He is no longer a surrogate driver, he is No. 1, and looking forward to a third title.

Only Amato has won three consecutive NHRA top-fuel championships. Scelzi wants to join him.

“We finished ’98 a whole lot different from the way we finished the year before,” said Scelzi. “Last year we finished strong and we’re ready to start right off with the same program--the same car, same driver, same team and same determination.

“We can’t wait to roll up to the line at Pomona.”

That would be next Thursday, when the AutoZone Winternationals open the 1999 NHRA season for the 39th time at the Pomona Raceway on the county fairgrounds.

OFF-ROAD RACING

The name and the promoters have changed, but the U.S. Off-Road championship series presented by Pace Motorsports of Aurora, Ill., looks like a carbon copy of the old Mickey Thompson Stadium Off-Road series.

The fourth round, scheduled for Saturday night at Edison Field in Anaheim, will feature five classes--stadium sport trucks, super modified buggies, pro quads, stadium thunder bikes and stadium lites.

The format is the same and some of the competitors are veterans of the Thompson era.

In the popular buggy class, Southern Californians have won the opening three races, Jerry Welchel of Rancho Santa Margarita in St. Louis, Cory Witherill of Santa Monica in Houston and Jimmy Nichols of Alpine in Minneapolis.

Even so, the class is led by Steve Sallenbach of Yutan, Nev., who was a close second to Nichols last week.

Witherill, defending champion in the 11-race series, is the only full-blooded Native American-- he’s a Navajo--to have won a professional racing championship. He also competes on the PPG Dayton Indy Lites circuit, which opens March 21 at Homestead, Fla.

Witherill also won the Fabtech Short Course series last year, and Canadian championships in 1995 and 1997.

SUPERCROSS

Jeremy McGrath, who got off to a shaky start in the AMA Supercross opener at Edison Field, has moved into first place with his victory last Saturday night in Phoenix.

Honda’s Ezra Lusk, who won the first two events in Anaheim and San Diego, crashed twice in Phoenix, finished 16th and dropped to fourth in the standings.

McGrath has won five of the last six Supercross titles and finished second the other time. The Canyon Lake rider will be on his Team Mazda Chaparral Yamaha in Seattle on Saturday night. The series will be back at Edison Field Feb. 6.

LAST LAPS

Speedweeks ‘99, which will climax with the Daytona 500 on Feb. 14, officially begins Saturday at Daytona International Speedway with the Rolex 24 Hour race, sports car racing’s premier American event. Entries include a wide variety of drivers and cars, such as Hurley Haywood, Dale and Don Whittington and Danny Sullivan in a Riley & Scott Ford; John Paul Jr. and Scott Sharp in Corvettes; Ernie Irvan, Deiter Quester and the Carlsbad duo of Boris Said and Brian Simo in a BMW M3; Bill Auberlen and Hans Stuck in another BMW M3; Stefan Johansson, Jimmy Vasser and Max Papis in a Ferrari, and defending champions Arie Luyendyk, Mauro Baldi and Didier Theys in another Ferrari.

To no one’s surprise, Winston Cup champion Jeff Gordon was awarded the Jerry Titus Memorial Trophy at last week’s American Auto Racing Writers & Broadcasters Assn. dinner in Long Beach. The award goes to the driver getting the most votes in All-American team balloting.

The 12-driver IROC lineup has been completed with the naming of Dale and Dale Earnhardt Jr., CART’s Adrian Fernandez and Winston Cup star Jeff Burton. Previously named were Gordon, Eddie Cheever, Mark Martin, Kenny Brack, Greg Moore, Rusty Wallace, Al Unser Jr. and Dale Jarrett. The first race is Feb. 12 at Daytona.

Perris Auto Speedway has shut down its quarter-mile track to concentrate on a 49-race schedule on its half-mile dirt oval. Opening race is Feb. 20 with the World of Outlaws sprint cars. The Saturday night season will include 23 programs for sprint cars, 14 for street stocks, two for flat-track motorcycles, nine for trucks and one for midget cars.