When looking at fan favorites across sprint car racing, there’s almost no wrong answer someone could come up with.
It’s a testament to the vast amount of different touring series there are for fans to follow paired with local tracks in action every weekend. There are plenty of drivers and personalities for fans to choose for – most of them genuine and appreciative because of the size of the sport, currently.
There’s one, though, that has just about everything a fan could want in someone to root for, and when he wins, it seems like he’ll be the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter that evening, and you can’t help but be surprised when you look and he’s not.
That’s just Dominic Scelzi.
“It’s pretty cool,” Scelzi said. “Obviously I haven’t won a whole hell of a lot of races back here – especially with it being my first (ASCoC) win and what not.”
The 23-year old, Fresno, California native has made his name big in the sprint car world. It helps that his brother, Gio Scelzi, is one of the best up and coming drivers in the sport and his dad, Gary, is a former NHRA Top Fuel and Funny Car champion.
But that’s not to take away from Dominic. He’s won fans over by being a fun loving, trailblazer with a joyous personality.
“It’s really fun for me when I can go to places and have success and it seems like the entire sport kind of goes crazy for me,” Scelzi said.
Scelzi drives the No. 41 Roth Motorsports car that dawns his family’s Scelzi Enterprises logo on the side.
The business makes different kinds of bodies for construction trucks as well as parts and other features. Dominic has been involved since he was young. It’s a family business.
That became even more true once the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
“We were kind of on the first line of defense towards this virus,” Scelzi said. “We were building cop cars for hospitals and then we were building dump bodies and flat beds for construction sites.”
Scezli and his brother were working basically every day once the pandemic put a pause on the world.
That’s something they’re used to during the off-season, but not during the first few months of the racing season.
“My brother and I were both on the production line,” Scelzi said. “We were doing that for over a month, just kind of working every single day. That’s something that I kind of enjoy doing in the off-season, but it was kind of different not going racing on the weekends.”
For Dominic, it was a bit of a preview of what’s to come for him in life.
He wants to dial it back on traveling for racing to help maintain Scelzi Enterprises for his family.
“I don’t want to be done racing,” Scelzi said. “I just wanted to slow down on traveling. My uncle is getting older and so is my dad. There’s really no one else in the family to help keep the business going, so I’ve gotten more involved in that over the last couple of years. Really my racing over the next couple of years is kind of going to be on the back burner. I’ll still be racing and stuff like that, but I’ll be home a lot more.”
Scelzi has had that plan for a while, and wasn’t initially looking at the schedule that ended up being his 2020 trip to the Midwest.
In a way – especially for fans from Iowa to Pennsylvania – the pandemic was a blessing in disguise that allowed Scelzi to get out and race a lot more than what was originally planned.
“We’re kind of just traveling and our business is slow enough through all of this that I am able to kind of get away,” Scelzi said. “In kind of a bad sense it’s helped me to be able to stay out here all year.”
Scelzi said he wanted to continue to make the trip east to participate in the Knoxville Nationals every season, but wants to maintain Scelzi Enterprises first and foremost.
“My heart’s in sprint car racing hardcore,” Scelzi said. “I love it. There’s nothing I’d really more I’d rather do than race sprint cars, but I’m to the point in my life where as much as I love it, I see a legacy that my family has built in our business that I don’t ever want to see go away. I figure if I can give up a little bit of time and still be able to race at home, have fun and enjoy what I’m doing, who knows?”
That doesn’t mean he isn’t leaving the door open, though.
“Maybe a couple of years – five or six years down the road – we can be in a position where we can go racing full time,” Scelzi said. “My goal will always be to be a full time Outlaw, but right now priority number one is going to be the business.”
Scelzi will be competing this weekend in the Roth Motorsports No. 41 car with the All Star Circuit of Champions as they run four races in four days, starting tonight at the Rayce Rudeen Foundation event.