ALGER, Wash. — Dominic Scelzi is no stranger to Dirt Cup at Skagit Speedway and is back this year for another crack at the $62,000 prize.
Scelzi recently made an appearance at Skagit on June 8 during a 360 sprint car feature, which allowed him to learn and get some laps in before this weekend’s 52nd Annual Jim Raper Memorial Super Dirt Cup, beginning on June 20.
“Well, one thing that I definitely felt like we could take away from was the way the racetrack heat raced,” Scelzi said. “I thought it was going to get really slick and wide, and it did get slick, and the racetrack was in really good shape, but the very bottom of the racetrack and very top of the racetrack had a lot of grip in it.
“That’s something I did not expect, and from years past, usually if it’s slick in the heat race, it just continues to widen out and continues to blow off, but it didn’t do that at all. So I felt like that was a really good thing for me to learn there compared to Thursday night of Dirt Cup.”
Last year, Scelzi started on the pole for the feature for the final night after being second-highest in points and winning the pole shuffle over Justin Sanders. However, Scelzi could not hold on as he fell back and finished fourth.
“The Dirt Cup [has] just been a great race for me since we first started coming in 2021, Scelzi said. “We’ve really been strong, I want to say, pretty much every preliminary night and every finale. Last year we started on the pole, and they reworked the top of the racetrack, which I kind of didn’t really agree with, and it put us in a bad position there.
“Had to chase Justin [Sanders] down several times and kept getting yellows every time we ran him down. It kind of just didn’t fall our way last year. We had to really work hard to try and battle back [from] behind the eight ball in the feature.”
Scelzi enters Dirt Cup this year looking to win and take home the big prize.
“We want to win the Dirt Cup, we’ve been close the past two years, hopefully we can kind of continue that speed and hopefully finish off a little bit better than we have the past two seasons,” Scelzi said.
Scelzi banked $5,000 after winning Sunday’s Timber Cup at Grays Harbor Raceway with the NARC 410 Sprint Car Series.