The Young and the Restless

Okay, so one of them is young, but both are definitely restless. Busy four-time NHRA champion and Team Mopar driver Gary Scelzi can’t tear himself away from the racetrack. He’s taken on yet another role, as a USAC team owner with 17-year-old phenom Michael Faccinto.

Words: Darren Jacobs

It’s a fact—Team Mopar NHRA POWERade Funny Car star Gary Scelzi can’t drag himself away from the racetrack. The four-time NHRA champion has added to his duties as a husband, father, business owner and NHRA Funny Car driver by donning yet another hat recently—that of a United States Auto Club (USAC) team owner. And though his busy days are now a blur, Scelzi wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’ve been around this all my life,” Scelzi said. “I’ve been the owner of a car myself [an Alcohol Dragster Funny Car back in 1985–1986]. I’ve always loved open wheel racing, way back since I can remember. I’ve always admired the guys that raced open wheel. So I decided I was going to do it.”

And when Gary Scelzi decides he’s going to do something, it gets done. The driver of the Mopar/Oakley Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car and owner of Scelzi Enterprises, a truck body manufacturing company, formed Gary Scelzi Motorsports last year. He took his new team to the dirt and pavement tracks of the USAC Western Midget Series, choosing rising young talent Michael Faccinto, all of 17 years old, to steer the Mopar/K&N Filters/Oakley midget car, with Mopar power plants supplied by Gary Stanton. Michael’s father, Monte Faccinto, was hired to work full-time with his son and the Gary Scelzi Motorsports team, along with two other part-time employees.

“My oldest son, Dominic, was racing junior sprints, and I bought his first car from Monte,” said Scelzi. “I got to know the family, and I watched Michael run 600 mini-sprints. He was extremely talented, and I was impressed by that, as well as his manner and demeanor and how he handled himself.”

Scelzi’s choices as a team owner have proven just as successful as his moves behind the wheel of a Funny Car. Faccinto earned a championship in the Ford Focus Series last year, and this year has finished no worse than fifth in Bay Cities Racing Association (BCRA) and USAC Western competition. He won a BCRA event in Hanford, Calif., in September, and at the October USAC Western Midget event at The Dirt Track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, with owner Scelzi in attendance, Faccinto charged all the way from the back of the pack to finish a very impressive third. His stellar performances at a relatively early age have veteran midget racing observers writing his name down as a driver to watch out for in the future. Translation: The kid can drive!

“I’ve seen what this kid can do and I believe in him,” Scelzi explained. “I don’t have to tell him to run up front, he just does it naturally. Even though Michael is very young, I let him do his own thing. I don’t tell my driver what to do. I don’t tell him how to drive. I just pretty much take the leash off and tell him to go get it. I tell him, ‘Drive it like you stole it. Your car owner is not going to bitch at you if you go out and crash the thing. Do what you feel is right, but don’t be afraid to stick your nose in there, because we’ve got more parts.’ I think Michael appreciates that.”

Umm … yeah! Faccinto loves his owner’s laid-back approach, as would most any racecar driver who heard his team owner speak those words (we can already see the line of prospective drivers forming, applications in hand, at Scelzi Motorsports’ 7,000 square foot shop in Fresno, Calif.).

“Gary’s awesome,” said Faccinto, who has to juggle his high school class work with his budding racing career. “He teaches me how to do interviews, how to handle myself. He never puts too much pressure on me. He knows that I can handle the car.

“This is my second year driving for him. We have moved up to the full midget cars and we have run consistent top-fives all year. It’s been a great partnership.”

“I plan on keeping Michael for a couple more years, or until someone comes along who wants to sign him to a driver development deal or who can run him more than I can,” Scelzi said. “A big thing is education, and I push that with my kids, too. Nobody wants a really good, stupid racecar driver. You want to have a back up.”

Scelzi wasn’t able to watch Faccinto as much as he would have liked this year—he was busy battling for his second NHRA Funny Car title (Scelzi claimed the NHRA Funny Car title in 2005 in his Mopar/Oakley Funny Car). In his role as a driver for Don Schumacher Racing, he captured four wins in 2007 and was one of four Funny Car drivers to qualify for the new NHRA Countdown to 1 two-race title shoot out. He wrapped up the season in third-place, his fifth finish in the Funny Car division top 10 since he switched over in 2002 from Top Fuel, where he seized three series championships.

“It’s extremely difficult,” Scelzi said of the 23-event, ten-month NHRA POWERade season. “With my schedule with drag racing, it makes it very hard to watch the car. I have to come home and watch the races on DVDs.”

Scelzi also reserves plenty of quality time to shepherd the burgeoning racing careers of his sons. Dominic, 10, races mini-sprints, and his six-year-old son Giovanni is soon to be racing junior sprints and go-karts. If you’re already asking how the 48-year-old Fresno native can squeeze it all in, get this—he’s already looking to expand his role as a team owner.

“We plan on running a lot heavier schedule next year,” said Scelzi, on his plans for Faccinto. “He’s got a lot of talent. We just haven’t had a lot of races out here. I would also like to own a World of Outlaws Sprint team. I would love to do that, have a USAC team and an Outlaws team, similar to Kasey Kahne and Tony Stewart [two NASCAR Nextel Cup stars who also own open-wheel teams]. I just love open wheel racing.”

Next year, schedule permitting, Scelzi hopes to enlist Faccinto in more USAC National and Western races, including the prestigious “Night Before the 500 Midget Classic” at Indianapolis Raceway Park. But he’s not going to let his young driver have all the fun. The drag racing veteran has competed in a number of open wheel events when his NHRA schedule has allowed, and will drive his midget car at the 22nd annual Chili Bowl Midget Nationals, scheduled to take place at Tulsa Expo Raceway’s indoor quarter-mile dirt oval on January 12, 2008.

“I told Michael that it’s my turn and I’m going to have some fun, so I’m going to do that,” he said, laughing. “I still want to jump in the car every now and then and make some laps, too. If I have funding I would definitely do that, I would definitely put a second car out there.”

Scelzi might relish his role as team owner, but his first love remains taking the wheel and hurtling down the quarter-mile in his 7,500 horsepower HEMI®-powered Mopar/Oakley Funny Car.

“I have no desire just to be a team owner. I still want to drive for a while longer,” Scelzi stated emphatically. “I love the idea of being a car owner, especially in the USAC and World of Outlaws Sprint Series, but I’m still a drag racer. I’m not making any bones about that.”

But when the time does come—as he knows it must—to hang up his helmet and take a spot in the pits as a watchful team owner, Scelzi will be fine—just as long as he’s around that exciting combination of speed, steel and fierce competition that defines the world of racing.

“I know the time will come to pull the plug,” said Scelzi. “Without question, being a team owner is definitely the route I want to go. I can’t be away from racing.”