As late as Thursday afternoon, KCP Racing still had plans to practice at Knoxville Raceway on Friday ahead of the July 18 Knoxville Cup show.
Then a press release issued on Friday afternoon confirmed that those plans had fallen through. KCP Racing parted ways with longtime driver Ian Madsen out of the blue.
The team didn’t state the reason of the move, but rather stated that they weren’t looking for an interim replacement. Their next driver would be the new one.
Enter Gio Scelzi.
The 18-year old, Fresno, California native is one of the top young drivers in the country and the team wasted no time getting in contact with him.
“(It took) one day,” Scelzi said. “A couple of hours. They contacted me on Friday. I went to their shop. This is something that you can’t pass up. Obviously a team, this established, with this great of people and this great of equipment – it doesn’t come around every day.”
The team, established in 2013, hit the ground running with Madsen. They won their first World of Outlaws race within the year, competed for a title at Knoxville, and then earned rookie of the year honors during Madsen’s two years on the full Outlaws tour.
In 2020, they opted to run a true outlaw schedule with Madsen – which might have been a blessing in disguise when making this move for owners Bret Nehring and Matthew Barbara.
So far, it’s off to a decent start for the three parties involved.
“Oh, it’s been awesome,” Scelzi said. “I already love all of the owners. Bret and Matt have been nothing but supportive during this whole short run we’ve had. I’m really happy with it and looking forward to the future.”
So far, the stint is off to a decent start.
Scelzi ran with the World of Outlaws during the Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup at Lernerville, finishing 20th in his debut in the 18.
On Saturday, however, Scelzi worked his way up to a runner-up finish after starting fourth, passing both Madsen in the 5 car and Austin McCarl in the closing laps.
“I committed to the bottom in (turns) one and two and that’s really where I made up a bunch of time,” Scelzi said. “A 20-lap race is so hard, you’ve got to figure your stuff out right now. Reutzel left all of us. He pretty much schooled us.”
Scelzi will be getting some good experience this weekend in the early stages of his run with the team.
He’s planning to go to each of the four Ollie’s All Star Circuit of Champions events throughout the weekend, starting on Thursday with the Rayce Rudeen event at Plymouth as well as Knoxville on Saturday.
Scelzi will be absent from the 360 Knoxville Nationals scheduled for next week due to being committed to run an ARCA West doubleheader, however, he will run the No. 18 car for the World of Outlaws stop at Knoxville in August.
“For being only my second night in the car, I am very happy with a second-place finish against a ton of good cars, and I am looking forward to the next few weekends,” Scelzi said.