In the week leading up to the second annual CompetitionPlus.com War Stories we will re-publish some of the finest moments from last year's contest. You'll hear some of the finest stories laid down in competition. The program works like this: 16 figures within the drag racing community are voted on by the readers of CompetitionPlus.com to determine who they feel could tell the best story. From that voting, an NHRA professional elimination ladder pairs the contestants and they battle it out until one is left.

In the week leading up to the second annual CompetitionPlus.com War Stories we will re-publish some of the finest moments from last year's contest. You'll hear some of the finest stories laid down in competition. The program works like this: 16 figures within the drag racing community are voted on by the readers of CompetitionPlus.com to determine who they feel could tell the best story. From that voting, an NHRA professional elimination ladder pairs the contestants and they battle it out until one is left.

 

GARY SCELZI - SEMI-FINALIST

THE STORY OF THE GRINNING RENTAL TRUCK

You know Ron Capps and I have history. There’s never a dull moment when you put us together. But I need to set the record straight. I am the one branded as the loudmouth funny guy. But, that quiet Ron Capps is as much a mess as anyone I know. Keep that in mind.

So, here it is in the middle of the summer and we’re headed to Sedalia, Missouri for a charity golf tournament. It’s the Michael Ross Foundation Charity Tournament that Danny Lasoski, a World of Outlaws Racer, puts on every year. He’s racing in the IROC series that year and it’s sponsored by Crown Royal. You can already see where this one is headed.

Anyway, we head to St. Louis and the game plan is to get a rental car and head over to the event.

You know us – we’re messing with the girl at the rental car counter and by the time we’ve finished – this poor old girl doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going. We get the car and make sure we get the insurance, keep that detail in mind – it will be important later in the story.

We get the car and start driving, and we’re running behind schedule already, and this thing is not handling good at all. That’s because it has a flat on the right front. So we whip this thing around, and nearly flip it driving it back on the rim to get a new one.

You could see the look on this girl’s face as we returned. She wanted to run.

“This thing is no good, we need something else,” we told her.

She then told us that we she had nothing else, well – except a crew cab Dodge truck. We said, “Perfect, we’ll take it.”

We hop in that truck, put the gas to the mat and haul ass to Sedalia, Missouri. The next morning we get up and head to the tournament. 

Needless to say, after 18 holes this turned into a big bus wreck. People were dropping pants and mooning one another and others were taking pictures. You get the idea. The people who go to these things are top racers on other circuits – big name circuits.

This thing was getting pretty ugly by the time we’d finished 18 holes and we still had a dinner, awards banquet and an auction to raise money for this organization.

One thing led to another and pretty soon none of us were in any shape to crawl back to the hotel, much less drive. I don’t even know that we could get a ride back to the hotel outside of the bus shuttle. The bus was running late and we didn’t feel like waiting.

We could see the hotel from the golf course parking lot. We started to rationalize that it would be okay to drive across the dirt field to the hotel and we’d be fine. After all, it wasn’t against the law to drive across the field to a hotel. How could we go wrong?

There’s about five of us in the truck.

One of the guys who played with us said he would drive, he would show us how to do it. “I’m gonna drive. We can do this,” he said.

I get in the back seat, buckle in, and we take across this field. One guy in the car spoke up and told Capps, “That’s bitchin’ that you guys get to drive 300 miles per hour for a living. What is that like?”

Well Capps, without missing a beat, says, “I’ll show you and puts the thing to the mat. We are hauling ass across this field and stuff is flying all over the truck and we’re holding on for dear life.

There’s always a time in every bad situation that you second guess yourself and at this point, I was having second thoughts.

What we didn’t take into account is that it had rained and this dirt field wasn’t hardened and it wasn’t flat. In fact, where they had begun developing the land, there were some drainage ditches. We didn’t know that and didn’t exactly take that into account before we take off on this adventure.

So, we are flying across this field and boom – this truck goes airborne. There is dead silence and we’re waiting for the impact that doesn’t come immediately.

In fact, there was a good four or five seconds of silence. I knew at that point, there wasn’t going to be a good outcome here. I thought we were going to flip or we had gone over a cliff or something.

Then all of a sudden there was a big crash sound as we hit. Then there was another big crash and that was our golf clubs finally landing in the bed of the truck.

You know when something like that happens, you can’t even speak, much less poop your pants. You just look at one another with your beverage dripping from the roof and your clothes.

We walked through the hotel like we had seen a ghost and got to our rooms and never spoke the rest of the night. Then, at 9:30 the next morning, we get up and head out to the parking lot.

There are no other cars in this parking lot – just this one Dodge truck and it looked like someone had taken it for a ride through a lake. We walked out and began looking this truck over.

It was so bad. The front bumper was bent so bad that it looked like it was smiling at us. There was no mud in the parking lot but only in a circle around this truck. Evidently, when the truck stopped – all the mud fell off right there.

We looked at each other trying to figure out what had happened and then it all came back. We opened the door and that was enough to knock someone down. It was a mess. Then we walked around to the back and every golf club was still in the back. Whatever hang time we had was long enough for every bag to land upside down and collect every flying club. We knew this one wasn’t going to turn out good.

Doug Kalitta saved us. He was at that tournament and was smart enough not to take the journey with us. He was flying back to Michigan and offered to give a ride back to St. Louis.

I thought, okay, this is perfect. We had a friend of Lasoski’s put it on a flat bed tow truck and take it to St. Louis because he was coming to St. Louis that weekend for the racing.

Everything seemed to fall into place and we thought we had gotten away with murder when three weeks later, Capps gets this phone call. Then Capps tells me, “Someone called from the rental car company and wanted to speak to Ron Scelzi.”

He tried to tell them they were speaking to Ron Capps, but they were intent on speaking to Ron Scelzi or Gary Capps. Come to find out, when we were at the rental counter, we had that girl so flustered that she got our names messed up.

This person was calling to find out who was going to pay for the $10,000 dollars in damage to this Dodge truck.

I thought Capps was just yanking my chain and then my phone starting ringing off the hook. I remembered when we did this we took out the insurance policy. I called the company back and finally told them there was Ron Capps and Gary Scelzi and to leave us alone.

I told them that truck was in perfect shape when we returned it. We had a friend of ours that dropped the truck off so someone must have stolen it and taken it for a joy ride. I told them we paid the insurance so leave us alone.

They tried for three more weeks to send us a bill, but I won’t mention any names because I’m afraid they won’t rent me another car.

I know there is one particular company that won’t rent to Ron Scelzi anymore.