PAIGE, Texas — Giovanni Scelzi won Saturday night’s Texas Two-Step World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series feature at Cotton Bowl Speedway.
The KCP Racing pilot started on the front row, pulled away early, and out-dueled a fast-charging Brent Marks to seal the deal. On Friday night he took the World of Outlaws points lead for the first time in his career, and on Saturday night he scored his first win of the season.
“I need to go find a top-dollar machine at the casino right now,” Scelzi said of a smile with his recent good fortune. “Man, the car is so fast. It minimizes the mistakes I make, so I can stick it in the slick part of the racetrack. Hats off to Adam (Clark). Bob (Curtis) if a new addition to the team, and he’s done an incredible job. And Aaron (Beiler) is doing great, too. Like I said, thank you to my guys.”
Scelzi is now up to seven career victories with The Greatest Show on Dirt. Last year it took the Fresno, CA driver 29 races before notching the first triumph of his rookie campaign. Seven races were all that was required for him to grab his first of the sophomore season. Scelzi’s early season points lead grew to 16 markers.
The result also made it seven different winners through seven races. That moves within one of equaling the record of eight different winners in the first eight races of a season established in 2015.
After topping the Toyota Racing Dash, Donny Schatz led the field to green with Scelzi alongside. Schatz slid up in front of Scelzi in turns one and two, but Scelzi turned down the banking on corner exit and drove ahead of the Tony Stewart/Curb Agajanian Racing No. 15.
As the early laps unfolded, Schatz was able to stay close behind Scelzi. But as the leaders entered traffic Scelzi sliced through lappers to build his advantage north of a second. The lead grew as large as two-and-a-half seconds.
But on the 13th circuit a new contender began to emerge. Friday’s winner — Brent Marks — threw a slider on Schatz that stuck and quickly set his sights on Scelzi.
Lap by lap the margin between the two began to shrink. Marks worked through traffic masterfully as the Murray-Marks No. 19 began to reel Scelzi in. On lap 15 the gap was under two seconds, and then six circuits later it dropped to under a second.
Then on lap 24 the battle for the top spot heated up. Marks got a huge run down the back straightaway and launched a massive slider in turns three and four. Scelzi barely got back by on corner exit to retake the lead down the front straightaway.
Then in the next set of corners Marks threw another slide job at “Hot Sauce.” Scelzi again turned low to counter and drove back ahead. Meanwhile, Logan Schuchart and David Gravel were engaged in just as intense of a duel for fourth behind them. The two traded several sliders and crossovers for the position.
More traffic waited ahead as the laps continued to wane. Scelzi made a few strong moves through the lappers and looked as if he had the win in the bag. But the red flag flew with two laps remaining as Gio’s brother – Dominic Scelzi – got upside down on the back straightaway.
The crash set up a green-white-checkered finish and gave Marks one last shot at Scelzi. But on the restart Schatz challenged Marks for second and forced him into a defensive mode. While Marks fended off the 10-time World of Outlaws champion, Scelzi pulled away to secure his first checkered flag of 2024.
“I just couldn’t get the thing squared up right to drive off the corner, and I started getting tight on entry,” Scelzi said of late struggles that allowed Marks to close. “Brent got to me and started bombing me and broke my momentum like he had to. I felt like once I got him the last time he didn’t slide me in (turns) three and four, and I was clear.”
Marks brought the Murray-Marks No. 19 home second, falling one spot short of a Texas Two Step sweep at Cotton Bowl.
“We just needed to get a good start there,” Marks said. “Gio went pretty early in the corner and being the second guy on the start there it’s just really hard to judge where they’re going to take off. He did a good job at tricking me a little bit, and when he took off it kind of left me in the slick a little bit more than I wanted to be. I spun the tires and just couldn’t quite get down the straightaway and into (turn) one like I wanted to have a shot at him.”
Rounding out the top three was Schatz, marking his second podium of the season.
“I would’ve liked to have won that, but I guess third is better than fourth,” Schatz said. “You’ve got to think about the big picture. All in all a decent night. This isn’t one of my best places. I think everybody that has a cell phone could see that all weekend it didn’t look like we were going to get to race, and we got two great nights of racing.”
Logan Schuchart and David Gravel rounded out the top five.
Giovanni Scelzi took Simpson Quick Time honors.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 18-Giovanni Scelzi[2]; 2. 19-Brent Marks[3]; 3. 15-Donny Schatz[1]; 4. 1S-Logan Schuchart[4]; 5. 2-David Gravel[8]; 6. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild[12]; 7. 17B-Bill Balog[5]; 8. 41-Carson Macedo[13]; 9. 83-Michael Kofoid[10]; 10. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss[6]; 11. 87-Aaron Reutzel[16]; 12. 45X-Jace Park[22]; 13. 7S-Landon Crawley[7]; 14. 1A-Jacob Allen[19]; 15. 6-Bill Rose[17]; 16. 25B-Blaine Baxter[21]; 17. 70-Kraig Kinser[15]; 18. 16TH-Kevin Newton[18]; 19. 41S-Dominic Scelzi[9]; 20. 23-Garet Williamson[14]; 21. 95-Matt Covington[11]; 22. 42P-Preston Perlmutter[20]