Early in his retirement, Scelzi already is thinking about driving again.

by Steve Waldron, National DRAGSTER

It's been only about a month since the curtain dropped on Gary Scelzi's driving career at the season-ending Automobile Club of Southern California NHRA Finals, and already the four-time NHRA world champion is talking about getting back in the cockpit.

"In the next couple of weeks I'm going to take my physical to renew my license for next year," said Scelzi, 48, who for the last six years drove a Funny Car for one of drag racing's highest profile teams, Don Schumacher Racing. "I want to keep everything current. There is a possibility that in January when testing starts I'll jump in somebody's car and make a couple of runs just for the hell of it. I'll definitely be going to Phoenix with my firesuit and helmet just in case.

"I don't know why, but I have a feeling that someone is going to call and ask me to drive at a race or two," he added. "Jim Head and I are good friends, and Jim really doesn't want to drive anymore. He's looking for someone to bring some money to the party, but even 12 to 14 races is too many for me. I'm sure he'll be in Phoenix or Las Vegas, and I may make a couple of runs in his car. I haven't talked to him about it, but I know if I asked him he'd do it, if for no other reason to give him a chance to stand outside the car and see if he likes someone else driving it."

For the last 12 years, Scelzi's life has revolved around drag racing. After driving Top Alcohol Dragsters and Top Alcohol Funny Cars for more than a decade, Scelzi joined the professional ranks in 1997 and drove Alan Johnson's Top Fuel dragster to victories in his first two starts en route to the Top Fuel championship. He won the championship again in 1998 and 2000, when he set a Top Fuel record for wins in a season with nine.

Scelzi and Johnson switched to Funny Car in 2002, but after struggling through the season's first seven races the two severed their five-and-a-half-year relationship. Scelzi signed with Schumacher Racing in 2003 and won his first Funny Car title in Sonoma, Calif., making him the only driver in NHRA history to win races in NHRA's four fastest classes (Top Fuel, Funny Car, Top Alcohol Dragster, and Top Alcohol Funny Car).

After a third-place finish in 2004, Scelzi mastered the class in 2005 when he dethroned John Force, becoming the only non-Force Racing driver to win a championship since Cruz Pederson in 1992. Scelzi didn't secure the championship until the season's final race, winning by eight points over Schumacher teammate Ron Capps in the closest Funny Car finish in NHRA history to become only the second driver in NHRA history to win championships in both Top Fuel and Funny Car.

"I would love to win another championship in Funny Car," said Scelzi, who has 37 career wins, 25 in Top Fuel. "Even though we won that one, it was almost like we were the last ones standing and I don't feel that we did it in the style and fashion that any of us wanted to do it in, [crew chief] Mike Neff included. When I was with Alan Johnson, we won those championships from the beginning, from behind, from every which way. By the time we pulled into Pomona it was done; we kicked their ass. We did a good job in Funny Car, but Funny Car is brutal. Guys are winning championships with DNQs and that never happened before. Now, everybody DNQs; it's the norm."

Of course, in order to win another championship Scelzi would have to return to racing full-time, and that's that last thing he wants to do right now.


"I've done this all my life, whether in the Sportsman ranks or as a Professional, and I need the time off; I need to go away for a while," he said. "My attitude was getting bad at home and at the racetrack. I had some close friends of mine tell me that I hadn't been smiling much the last year and half, and they were right."

This year was especially tough for Scelzi, who finished outside the top 10 and failed to win a race for the first time in his 11 full seasons as a professional. Neff, his crew chief since he began driving for Schumacher, left and was replaced by Todd Okuhara. Okuhara was then sidelined by an inner-ear infection in July and eventually subbed for my Richard Hogan.

"I've never had a year like I had this year, even when I drove Sportsman cars that were lousy," he said. "Everything changed. When I worked with Mike Neff we had the same guys for five years. Todd Okuhara and I got along really well, but we just couldn't make anything happen. I'd never gone to the starting line thinking that I was duck, but I couldn't keep a positive attitude. I started booking my flights home for Sunday evening and I'd never done that before. Richard actually got the car to decent, but our finishes didn't show it."

Though Scelzi's disappointing 2008 season likely hastened his decision to step away, maintaining and growing the family's custom truck body manufacturing business in his hometown of Fresno, Calif., and spending more time with his wife Julianne and their sons Dominic, 11, and Giovanni, 7, were his primary reasons.

"I'm slowly getting my feet wet again after being out of the business for 12 years," said Scelzi. "My older brother Mike and I started Scelzi Enterprises in 1978, and he's excited. With me being gone and the business growing as it has, he was really struggling. My other brother Jim is also involved in the business, but with 200 employees it takes more than two, and I know the business. I may not know a lot of the day-to-day stuff, but I know the manufacturing end of it and I know the sales end of it. There have been some major changes since I've been gone, and I need to get back involved."

One thing that hasn't changed is Scelzi's commitment to his sons' racing, though things will be different.

"When I raced I was always home on Monday afternoon and didn't leave until Thursday morning, so I was at their disposal," said Scelzi, who has been busy getting Dominic's Restricted Mini Sprint and Giovanni's Junior Sprint cars ready for next season. "I'd go into the office in the morning, but I was home they got out of school and we'd go do something. Now, I'm a normal dad. I go to work at 7 in the morning and don't get home until 6 at night. I'll still be able to go to their games [both play football and baseball] and things at school, but now I have a job and I have to be there. Just because Dad's home doesn't mean he's going to be Mr. Mom. But I'll be home weekends and from March until October we'll be racing just about every Friday and Saturday night."


As busy as he has been, Scelzi misses the things that he would normally be doing this time of year if he was still racing, like picking out a new firesuit, weighing in on the team's color schemes and graphics, and flying back to Schumacher's shop in Indianapolis to be fitted for a new chassis.

"It's kind of an empty feeling, and if it's already hitting now I can't imagine what it's going to be like when the season starts," he said. "I'm going to the Winternationals and if someone slips on a banana peel and needs me to step in for a couple of races, I'll be available. But I definitely don't what to go back and do a 24-race thing, not right now. Pomona will be a big gauge for me to see how I'm able to handle being on the other side of the ropes. That's going to be different and I guess I won't know until it happens.

"I'm going to miss driving the most," he added. "The one thing you can't replace is the feeling that you get driving one of these cars and the knot you get in your stomach Sunday morning. And I'm going to miss the people who race, the people I spent the weekends with having dinner and hanging out. That was so much a part of my life that it's going to leave a void."

Though Scelzi has left the door open, it would take a lot for him to consider another full-time ride.

"I'm not going to do it just to do," he said. "Even if I wanted to come back in 2010, it would have to be a pretty good situation for me to even consider it. I'd have to have a say in who was going to be on the team because I know a lot of the crew guys and I'd want the best, and the crew chief would have to be someone I felt I could get along with and win a championship with. If not, then I have no desire to do it. I might do something with Jim, and I honestly think Jim's car is capable of winning a race, but it would have to be a special situation for me to do it full time; a deal where all the stars lined up and there'd be enough money that we'd want for nothing, pretty much like what I left in both Top Fuel and Funny Car."

But if Scelzi never wins another race or another championship, he'll be okay with that.

"Of all the national events I've won and all the championships I've won, my greatest satisfaction is knowing that I can walk into anyone's trailer and they'll welcome me with open arms, and it doesn't matter who it is," he said. "That's one thing that nobody can ever take away and something that makes me feel really proud."