GARY SCELZI SHOOTS FROM THE LIP

By Susan Wade. Photos by Jeff Burk

Gary Scelzi isn't going to sit in Cruz Pedregon's old chair.

Why should he? It took Pedregon a year to warm it up, then he decided he was more comfortable sitting in a Funny Car.

Well, same for Scelzi. "I'm pretty much over the Top Fuel dragsters," he said as his season, a stressful yet sentimental struggle, ground to a halt.

The three-time Top Fuel champion's Winston sponsorship went up in smoke at the end of the 2001 NHRA season, when R.J. Reynolds was forced to comply with the Master Settlement Agreement between the federal government and the tobacco industry.

Scelzi, three-time Top Alcohol Funny Car titlist, will get his taste of the nitro version in 2002. But so far he has said more about who his new sponsor isn't than who it is as he switches pro classes and drives a Funny Car for the first time since 1976.

He said he'd announce the new deal "after Pomona" but eliminated a few firms rumored to be involved.

Gary Scelzi isn't going to be the Beefcake in Brown. Alan Johnson won't be running any Blue Light Specials in their pit. Forget FedEx.

"I'll tell you what's not true," Scelzi said. "I'm not going to go on the TV program. My sponsor's not going to be K-Mart. It's not FedEx, and it's not UPS (United Parcel Service), and I've talked with them myself -- not with their agencies, with them personally.

"It's somebody that's not been involved before. And it's not going to be the series sponsor." He said he and teammate Bruce Sarver will not have identical sponsors but their individuals sponsors "will be under an umbrella" corporate label.

One thing Scelzi doesn't mind telling, though, is his plan to remain vocal about safety. Removing himself from a Top Fuel dragster doesn't mean distancing himself from the issue.

"I'm going to demand that NHRA makes these cars safer. I'm going to fight tooth and nail," he said.

Scelzi said he'd be badgering Ray Alley, NHRA's Director of Top Fuel and Funny Car Racing, and Graham Light, Senior Vice-President of Racing Operations -- two he indicated weren't doing enough on that front. "It's not their asses in the seat," Scelzi said. "I've been upside down three times."