When former NHRA announcer and longtime statistician Bob Frey speaks, the drag racing community generally should take his word as the gospel. After all, few are more plugged into drag racing’s numbers than him.
One drag racer did and didn’t.
When it came down to who had low elapsed time at the 1973 NHRA Gatornationals, multi-time nitro champion Gary Scelzi believed it enough to bet his life on it. Only when Frey spoke of Scelzi’s status in drag racing, he shrugged it off as “crazyspeak.”
“Bob Frey always said, ‘There’s a future Hall of Famer,’ and this and that, I never really paid much attention,” Scelzi said. “Even now, I mean, it is a great honor, and it hasn’t really, really hit me, and I’m excited to be a part of this because I never thought a kid from Fresno who just wanted to drag race would ever become this. But the bottom line is I will never ever be a Don Garlits, a Shirley Muldowney, a Don Prudhomme, a Kenny Bernstein, a Joe Amato. I mean, those guys are the guys. That’s what built this whole sport.”
Scelzi is right. That’s because he is a one of a kind.
The kid who dreamed of being an iconic name in the sport, became one in so many ways. He is, to this date, the only drag racer to have won in both Top Fuel and Funny Car, and Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Alcohol Funny Car.
“I’ve had a great career, but I’m never going to be at that level of those guys,” Scelzi said. “In my mind, in reality, those are the true Hall of Famers. I grew up reading Drag News, and it was the [independent] National Dragster at that time. I laid on my bed as a kid reading about those guys and reading about Gordie Bonin, Fred Mandoline, Billy Williams, Ken Veney and Bob Newberry in alcohol racing. Then there were the fuel guys like Prudhomme and Mark Oswald. Those were the guys. I just, man, that was just a life.
“I watched watch them all on Wide World of Sports, Shirley and Garlits, and I’m never going to ever be at that level. To me, those are the all-time greats. Kenny Bernstein, 301 miles an hour. I mean, he’s the king of speed and always will be. Darrell Gwynn, they’re the real legends in my mind.”
One day, and it’s highly unlikely, Scelzi will realize there are two eras, sort of like Babe Ruth and Derek Jeter.
“Will I always put them on a pedestal as icons? Absolutely,” Scelzi said. “Maybe that’s a better word. That’s what I do, but I do place them as icons. Now, did I want to race them? Did I want to beat them? Hell yes. They didn’t matter to me who the hell they were, but now I look at it, I look at it differently.”
Scelzi just smiles with his trademark handlebar mustache when he recalls the largely untold story of how it all worked out. His initial foray into the licensing foray went so rough, he actually questioned if he could do it all.
There was tremendous pressure as Scelzi was initially tapped to be the successor of the late Blaine Johnson in the Johnson Family Top Fuel dragster spearheaded by Alan Johnson. Adding to the pressure was the announcement the dragster would be series sponsor R.J. Reynolds’ flagship car.
The first time he sat in the car and warmed was a life-altering experience.
“That scared the s*** out of me,” Scelzi admitted. “That’s back when we run 98% [nitro] and I remember warming that thing up in Santa Marina and I called my wife that night and Jim Head was in Santa Maria, and it was cold weather and that thing was popping and banging and just hungry for horsepower.
“My wife goes, ‘What’s wrong?’
“I said, ‘Man, I can’t do this.’
“She goes, ‘What do you mean you can’t do this?'”
“I said, ‘They started that thing up and I mean, I just forgot everything Alan Johnson told me and I mean, I nearly crapped my pants.”
The talented alcohol racer has rehearsed the procedures in his mind untold times sitting at home in his recliner, but when it came time to do the real deal, he froze like a deer in headlights.
“My wife went over things with me ahead of it, ‘What do you do with this? What do you do when Alan does that? What do you do this?”
“I was flawless. I mean, it all that worked out outstandingly in the end, but I sure doubted myself.”
Not many first-time fuel racers win a championship in their rookie season, but Scelzi did and came across like a seasoned veteran. From his first start, he played the part of a natural.
Scelzi, and 36 at the time of his Top Fuel debut, also won one of his first starts in an alcohol-fueled dragster (also in Pomona at the 1985 Winston Finals), passed every test in his first outing as Johnson’s successor. He edged Joe Amato’s and Kenny Bernstein’s matching 4.62s in qualifying with a 4.620, 314.79 that earned him the pole and temporarily gave him both ends of the track record.
The final round where Scelzi secured victory was one for the ages.
Scelzi and Amato both spun the tires just off the starting line. Amato pedaled once but lifted the supercharger off the manifold and coasted. Scelzi, almost sideways after the initial tire spin and unaware of Amato’s plight behind him, kept whacking the throttle and won with a tire-spinning 7.71.
The final round was an SBS moment, Scelzi being Scelzi, as he turned into one of the most entertaining drivers both on and off the strip. Past NHRA champion Richard Tharp was considered drag racing’s ultimate party animal until Scelzi said, “Hold my beer.”
“You know what?” Scelzi said. “I’ll tell you what, I guarantee you, and this is a bold statement, I guarantee you that Alan Johnson may have won a bunch of races, but he never had as much fun unless it was with his brother. But when we raced with Winston, we had a ball and we kicked some serious ass. I mean, it was great.”
The truth of the matter, following in the footsteps of a cherish drag racer in Blaine Johnson, was as tough of a challenge as there could be.
“It was a very tough situation, but I got to tell you, as much as I made it not easy but tolerable for the Johnson’s, they made it as tolerable for me,” Scelzi said. “They treated me like family and we had one hell of a time. I mean me and Everett and Alan and John Rodeck and John Cox, and we just had a ball, and Terry Morrow. It was every week, it was we topped it. It was something new. I mean, I learned a lot from them. I really did. I learned, I knew how to win, but I learned how to race.”
Decades after that first nitro season, Scelzi could have never believed life on the road would become such a challenge. Driving a Funny Car for Don Schumacher where he eventually won a championship, life on the road eventually got the best of Scelzi.
“You know what’s different about me, and I think that most of the drivers, even now today, especially today, that Ed McCulloch taught me this, the first win at Pomona,” Scelzi explained. “He said, ‘Don’t get caught reading your own press clippings.”
“He told me something very important and very valuable that, ‘You meet the same people on the way up as you do on the way down. And trust me, kid, you may be up right now, but you will go down.”
“No truer words were ever spoken.”
Scelzi’s storied career ended with 43 national event victories, three Top Fuel championships and a Funny Car title.
“You know what? I was so busy concentrating on doing it right that I never looked at the big picture about going down or going up or going down those first years,” Scelzi admitted. “I wanted to not let them down because they lost their son, they lost their brother, and I can’t imagine with the two kids, and now I got two granddaughters, I can’t imagine something this horrible.
“I can’t imagine that Darrell Gwynn, I can’t imagine a Darrell Russell for that matter, everybody’s doing what they love, but man, there’s nothing more precious than a human life.
Scelzi learned early and often, one must drive without regard to their mortal existence if they hope to be a legend. It was a chance he was willing to take time and time again, until he wasn’t and walked away.
“The only reason I’m here is because I’m lucky. I keep saying God said I was too small to fish. He said, ‘I’m going to throw him back because he don’t make the meter.” I’m glad he did because I got to live. I mean, I still am living life to the fullest.
“I would say winning the first world championship because that was something I always wanted to be, I mean in alcohol obviously, but I knew I was never going to be with a team or was going to be able to leave work enough to go chase a dream.”
Scelzi admits he’s never written a speech, and Thursday evening, he will walk to the podium with an off-the-cuff performance. And yes, it will be a performance.
“I’m going to shoot from the hip, ad-lib, try to be funny and try not to get confused and try not to be emotional,” Scelzi declared. “I refuse to write a speech. I might write some talking points, but I don’t know that I’ll even do that. I don’t know what I’m going to say other than thank you for voting me in.”
Because as Scelzi sees it, the Hall of Fame is something that happens to other icons. This time he’s one of the others.
