In the week leading up to the third annual CompetitionPlus.com War Stories we will re-publish some of the finest moments from last two years competition. You'll hear some of the finest stories laid down in competition. The program works like this: 16 figures within the drag racing community are voted on by the readers of CompetitionPlus.com to determine who they feel could tell the best story. From that voting, an NHRA professional elimination ladder pairs the contestants and they battle it out until one is left.

Today's story comes from Gary Scelzi, the 3-time NHRA champion, winner in the 2007 War Stories Showdown. Scelzi finished semi-finalist in the first two events.

  

SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT

If you’ve ever seen the movie RV with Robin Williams, I know where they got their inspiration.

My second rounder, and no I haven’t been contacted by any rental car agencies after the first round, dates back to my Winston dragster days when I first got a motor home I had great intentions but somehow or another, great intentions go wrong.

Okay, so here’s what happened to me.

The time frame was in 1999 and I was testing one weekend in Tucson, Arizona. I had the motor home parked next to the team and on this weekend, it was just me, no family. It was just me.

Well I saw the value of the motor home right off of the bat because at the end of the night, we’d hang around the pits and me, the crew and Scotty Cannon would all partake in adult beverage. Yes, Crown Royal was involved.

When it would get cold, the gathering would move indoors to the motor home.

During one of those evenings, I struck up a deal with our clutch man Jeff Garvin that he would drive the motor home from race to race for a nominal fee. It sounded like a winner to me.

Sunday night, we wrapped up testing and decided that we were going to drive over to Phoenix and check out some of the other teams testing. We’re doing our final checks and Jeff races up to me and tells me that we have a problem. There’s water on the floor.

My first inclination is that someone has spilled a bottle of water on the floor. It was more than that.

The flusher on the crapper is sort of like a clutch pedal and instead of releasing -- it got hung up and filled the toilet to the brim with water. Thank God the dirty water was under the valve. It didn’t overfill and could have been worse than it actually was.

No problem. We started throwing down towels to absorb the water. There was a truck stop five miles away, so we made plans to dump and stock up with water. I spent quite a bit of time telling Garvin just how simple this would be and how slick these operations are.

We get to the truck stop and there was a long line to fuel, so we decided to get the dumping out of the way. It looked so good on paper.

So we get there and I’m hooking up the hose to the dump hole. I’m down on my knees explaining the process to Garvin. I’m explaining, ‘What you do here once you get your hose hooked up is to pull this – that’s the black tank, the poop. Once you get that dumped then the grey water. That’s the shower water and water you do the dishes with. The grey water will wash the hose out for you.’

I think there comes a moment in time when you wish life would allow do-overs. This would be one of those times.

Jeff's eyes looked like he’d seen a ghost. I started cussing. I didn't realize that when you put the hose on, it needed a hose clamp on there to hold it tight. Being that thing was so full it had so much pressure that it blew the hose right off of the nozzle. It nailed me.

Now what happens is that you have a faucet there of fresh water. I turned the faucet on, and guess what? It's out of water, remember?

I'm covered in s$%^# from my neck to my feet and I'm walking around the truck stop and every fresh water hose bit has the key taken out of it. I don't have any tools -- nothing.

There's nothing to wash the windshield or anything like most stops have – nothing, and I have no water.

I went to the front of the motor home and get one of my windshield wiper washer squeegee deals. I start scrubbing myself down and I'm blue, I'm telling you, blue. This wasn't getting me any where.

I had nowhere to rinse off. I refuse to get in my new motor home with crap on me. My clothes are ruined.

There's only one option left for me. I strip down to buck-a** naked.

My arms from the elbow down are blue. My chest is white and the blue went through my pants and keep in mind, I'm buck naked at the truck stop.

I go into the motor home and get some fresh clothes. Still I can’t find any fresh water.

I holler at Jeff to get in the motor home and then we go off in search of water. I'm so mad, that I have the window open in the coach and I pull right out in front of this guy. I didn't see him. I pulled right out in front of him.

This guy, who was driving an S-10, locked down the brakes and spun this thing sideways. He's yelling and screaming and MF'ing me out the window for pulling out in front of him.

That was the wrong time to do that to me -- when I have blue on me all around my neck and I'm yelling for this guy to pull over.

I was going to kick his ass.

He looked at me as if to say, “I am not messing with this guy.”

He peels out and I couldn’t catch him any way. We went about 5 miles up the road, dumped, filled up and showered. I still had a light blue tint to me.

It was 2 hours to Phoenix and I’m walking around and then the shouts come, “Hey Blue Man, what’s going on?”

Jeff Garvin called ahead and told Dan Olson. Everyone knew the whole story. I don’t remember who it was, but someone from Schumacher’s group yelled out – “Hey Scelzi, heard you had a real sh&*^y day.

Everywhere I went it was s^&* story or a blue story. That went on for a few years.

I don’t think the Blue Man Group was around then, but I could have been a headliner.