Gary Eugene Scelzi[1] (born August 11, 1960) is an American dragster racer and midget car owner who has won the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series Top Fuel championship on three occasions and the Funny Car title once.
Ironically, Mike Neff, Scelzi's crew chief for the 2005 Funny Car championship, moved to John Force racing to drive starting at the 2007 ACDelco Las Vegas Nationals to replace Eric Medlen, who was killed in a testing crash after the Mac Tools Gatornationals in 2007.
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.
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.
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.