Four-time NHRA world champion Gary Scelzi said his team fought gremlins all weekend, but he overcame them with his third victory of the year on Sunday. Scelzi opened the day with a holeshot victory over Gary Densham, then went on to beat Del Worsham and Tommy Johnson Jr. to finally square off against teammate Jack Beckman for the event title.

"Isn't it amazing what my little Hawaiian crew chief (Todd Okuhara) can do?" Scelzi said after his semifinal win. "He can make this short, little fat wop look pretty good. I'm excited as hell. This Countdown is a big thing for us. We struggled a little bit here but this car is really ready to rock and roll, we haven't unleashed the beast yet. Something's always breaking or going wrong, we've still got some gremlins.

"You know they got me monitored up on ESPN2 with Dunn and Page. It's hard for me to talk without cussing, so they took the radio out. They can't listen to me now!"

Scelzi defeated his teammate in a great final round race with a 4.886 at 314.61 mph to Beckman's very close 4.892 at 310.55 mph.

"Our tune-ups are very similar and the cars run very similar," said Scelzi. "It's scary how similar they are. I never saw him the whole way down there but that doesn't mean that you're ahead. So I saw the win light on the wall and I got on the radio to make sure. It was a great relief for my crew because everybody knew each other's tune up, they ran identical, fortunately we were the one's to win and I appreciate Beckman and Capps' guys. We're all working so well together and we've got three Schumacher cars in the final four right now. Now we need to stay there by the time we get to Vegas."

How tight was qualifying in Funny Car at the Mid-South Nationals? The drivers in the No. 15 and 16 spots, teammates Del Worsham and Jeff Arend, made identical 4.915-seconds runs and their positions were determined by their top speed. The No. 17 and 18 non-qualifiers, Jim Head and Mike Ashley, made identical 4.956-second attempts and both missed making the show by a mere one-thousandth of a second.