birth_place teams nationality year birth_date wins article_title name
fresno , california alan johnson racing , don schumacher racing italian 1997 , 2000 -lrb- tf -rrb- and 2005 -lrb- fc -rrb- -lrb- tf -rrb- , 1998 -lrb- tf -rrb- 11 august 1960 43 gary scelzi
 gary scelzi
gary scelzi

gary scelzi , -lrb- born august 11 , 1960 , fresno , california -rrb- , is an american dragster racer and midget car owner who has won the nhra mello yello drag racing series top fuel championship on three occasions and the funny car title once .
in 1997 he won the title in his first full year of competition , after replacing blaine johnson , who had been killed at the 1996 us nationals , while leading the top fuel championship , in the johnson family-owned car .
he has not competed in nhra competition since the 2008 season .
scelzi went on to win three top fuel championships , but at the end of the 2001 season , with the alan johnson-owned team losing its winston sponsorship because of the master settlement agreement , and also partly due to a major accident he had that season , he jumped to funny car , with new sponsorship , and a toyota celica .
the results were a disaster for scelzi , and he resigned from his ride midway through the season , only to join don schumacher racing for the 2003 season in an oakley sponsored dodge funny car .
scelzi unseated the john force racing dynasty , defeating john force and robert hight to win the 2005 nhra full throttle funny car championship , making it the first time since 1992 -lrb- larry minor racing -rrb- with cruz pedregon driving , a team other than john force racing had won the nhra mello yello drag racing series funny car championship , that championship also made him only the second person in nhra history to win championships in both top fuel , and funny car , the other , being kenny bernstein .
in his spare time he has raced midgets for fun , even competing in the chili bowl nationals in tulsa , ok , competing in a 2003 `` celebrity '' race against fellow drag racer ron capps and dirt trackers danny lasoski , scott bloomquist , dave darland , j. j. yeley , and tony stewart .
scelzi recently purchased a ford focus midget -lrb- a spec-class midget -rrb- for personal pleasure and entered the 2005 usac turkey night grand prix in irwindale , ca , racing against a midget owned by fellow nhra funny car champion cruz pedregon .
in 2006 , his midget was driven by 16-year-old driver michael faccinto of hanford , california , who won the 2006 united states auto club national ford focus midget championship , including wins at the turkey night grand prix in irwindale , california .
scelzi sold his focus midget at the end of 2006 and moved up to standard midgets with dodge powerplants , with sponsorship from his funny car sponsors .
after the 2008 season , scelzi retired from driving his fuel funny car to focus on scelzi enterprises .
he was succeeded by # 2 points finisher in 2010 , matt hagan , who now drives the diehard dodge charger for don schumacher racing .
